Page:Substance of the Work Entitled Fruits and Farinacea The Proper Food of Man.djvu/24

 posture of man, with hands adapted to pick fruit, but with no facility for catching prey or picking up low herbage—also, that his teeth are eminently suited to fruit—and it will not appear that he is formed alike for all sorts of food, but that he is specially adapted for aliments of a class intermediate to the two extremes—flesh and grass.

The nearest approach to man is the (four-handed creatures), particularly in the orang-outang, whose teeth (says Professor Lawrence) might easily be mistaken for human, though in the aspect of the canine teeth he approaches the carnivora, for they are longer and sharper, and have intervals to enable opposite teeth to lap over and knit. But, in most respects, the orang is extremely like us, as, in particular, in the disposition of the enamel on the grinders, the form of the stomach, the comparative length of the intestines, the capacity of the cæcum and cells in the colon. Where there is a difference, it is such as denotes man to be less formed for animal diet than the orang. Thus, the orang has the zygomatic arch larger than ours, and temple-muscles far stronger; but he is without the valvular folds of stomach and duodenum: also in general the other apes have teeth of a somewhat more carnivorous character. Now as the orang, and most species of monkeys, when left to follow their own instincts, are wholly frugivorous, subsisting on fruits, nuts, or farinaceous vegetables, we are justified in concluding that this is also man's natural food, and not that mixture of flesh and herbage which many physiologists would have us believe.

Dr. Abel's orang "appears naturally to have preferred fruit; though he yielded (on shipboard) to the temptation of meat, and seems to have quickly become as carnivorous as his companions. His food in Java was chiefly fruit, especially mangostans, of which he was excessively fond; he also sucked eggs with voracity, and often employed himself in seeking them. On shipboard he was very fond of bread, and would not refuse flesh; but always preferred fruits when he could obtain them. Afterwards, however, his food was vegetable, both from his own choice, and because it agreed much the best with him." Sir William Jardine says—"The food of this family may be called almost entirely vegetable, the eggs, and occasionally the young of birds, being the only approach which can be traced to a carnivorous propensity." They plunder the maize-fields, and rob the orchards of their choicest fruits; and, in a state of confinement, vegetable diet continues their favourite and most nourishing support; but they will eat almost anything that the luxury of man has introduced, and some even become remarkable for their peculiarities. One of the keepers of the Tower of London