In Monastery

The two British doctors dealt frankly with the monks. They-- Drs. Sydney A. Monckton Copeman and Major Greenwood were on a, mission for the Ministry of Health to learn how much influence a vegetarian and a flesh diet had in causing cancer. Was cancer more prevalent among carnivores than among flesh-abstainers, or the opposite? It would be possible, scientists reasoned, to segregate batches of humans, like laboratory mice, and study the effects of diets. But that would be inconvenient. Then a keen mind in the Ministry of Health fixed attention on the Roman Catholic monasteries in England. The monks living in them follow regimens as regular, definite and controlled as could ever be kept up for laboratory specimens. The Cistercians never eat meat or fish; the Carthusians eat no meat, nor do they smoke or talk; the Benedictines eat meat sparingly, three days a week for half the year. On the other hand the Carmelites and Dominicans feed themselves as do lay Roman Catholics. These, therefore, were the "controls" for observations on the others. The Ministry of Health, pleased with the bright economy of the investigation, decided last week that there was no difference in the incidence of cancer among flesh-eaters or vegetable eaters. As many of one group died of cancer as of the other.