Probably the greatest advantages which accrue from the adoption of a vegetarian regime lie in the fast that such a dietary is a most valuable corrective of over-eating. There is no doubt that vegetable foodstuffs are less appetising than animal foods, and accordingly the vegetarian feeder is much less exposed to over-indulgence, with its attendant unfavourable results. The system of diet adopted by the strict vegetarian and fruitarian are not to be commended; the lacto-vegetarian regime, on the other hand, is a most useful form of diet therapy in many diseased states. Its value is none the less pronounced because its beneficial effects may be in many cases to a material extent dependent on its negative property of ensuring moderation in feeding.

Such a diet has special advantages in the upbringing of the children of typically gouty parents; it is also most useful in the treatment of many disorders of the renal, cardiac, and vascular systems. Its use tends to lower blood-pressure and diminishes the strain on certain important glandular organs intimately concerned in the processes of excretion and general nutrition, notably the kidneys and thyroid gland (see Appendix). Its long-continued use in certain cases also influences favourably the secretion of mucin from the glands in various mucous membranes, and hence it is of value in chronic catarrh of the mucous membranes, notably the nasal, bronchial, and uterine mucous membranes (dysmenorrhoea and menorrhagia). It is also useful in some forms of rheumatism, gout, and chronic nervous disorders, provided due attention is paid to the quantity and manner of presentation of the vegetarian foods, so as to prevent abnormal fermentation processes. On the other hand, we must recognise that there are not a few cases met with in practice in which patients have either dieted themselves, or taken on medical advice a more or less rigid vegetarian diet, to the serious detriment of their general health, and a corresponding aggravation of their disease. Some more or less strict vegetarian diets occasionally used, including nuts, are difficult of digestion, and therefore of poor nutritive value; and occasionally they profoundly derange primary digestion, inducing diarrhoea or constipation, ansemia, and profound disturbance of general health. Reviewing the subject as a whole, it may be said that in healthy subjects, and more especially young subjects under forty years of age, a lacto-vegetarian diet has no advantages over the more conventional mixed dietary, taken in equal moderation and submitted to the process of thorough mastication; in later life, however, in health it is a wise rule gradually to more and more restrict the rich animal protein foods, and approximate to a lacto-vegetarian regime; and in the diseased states referred to, the therapeutic advantages of a carefully planned more or less strict lacto-vegetarian diet are very great indeed.