PEDIATRICS Vol. 48 No. 3 September 1971, pp. 422
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow P3Rs: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when P3Rs are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by C., T. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by C., T. E., Jr.

AN EXPLANATION FOR THE VIVACITY AND TALENT OF IRISH YOUTH, ACCORDING TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR

T. E. C. Jr. M.D.

Scotsmen, such as the scholarly Sir John Sinclair (1754-1835), have long sought an explanation for the vivacity and talent of Irish youth. As Sinclair mentions below, Irish peasant youths "displayed a degree of shrewdness exceeding what is generally met with from youth of a more exalted walk of life in England."

Sinclair, a barrister (Lincoln's Inn), President of the Board of Agriculture of Scotland, and an avid observer of children's growth and development, thought that the vegetable diet of the poor children in Ireland played an important part in making Irish youth (and adults, too) so lively and intelligent. He wrote:

There cannot be a doubt that the diet of the Irish is highly favorable to vivacity and talent. It is stated in the Code of Health that vegetable food has a happy influence on the mind, and tends to preserve a delicacy of feeling, a liveliness of imagination, and an acuteness of judgment, seldom enjoyed by those who live principally upon animal food. The latter is better calculated for those who labor with the body; but the celebrated Franklin ascertained that a vegetable diet promoted clearness of ideas and quickness of thought, and that a transition from vegetable to animal food produces injurious effects. A friend states that he has more than once selected from his tenant's children a boy remarkable for that smartness of intelligence so common in the Irish youth, while in the capacity of errand boys on the farm, or helpers in the stables, and before they became pampered with better food than their parent's cabin afforded. The lads were at first lively and intelligent, and displayed a degree of shrewdness exceeding what is generally met with from youth of a more exalted walk of life in England. But he invariably found that in proportion as these boys were better fed, they relaxed in activity, became dull and stupid; and he is confident that the change in disposition sprang from the effect of change in diet, and was not owing to corruption of mind from their intercourse with the other servants. In fact they lose all that vivacity of manner so inherent in the Irish boys, whether born in the vast bog of Allan, or in the dry and rocky counties of Mayo and Galway. He is therefore inclined to think that the character of the people does not depend so much upon climate or soil, as upon food, for no part of the globe can differ more than these parts of that kingdom.1