The natural food of man : being an attempt to prove from comparative anatomy, physiology, chemistry and hygiene, that the original, best and natural diet of man is fruit and nuts / by Hereward Carrington.

  • Carrington, Hereward, 1880-1959.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The natural food of man : being an attempt to prove from comparative anatomy, physiology, chemistry and hygiene, that the original, best and natural diet of man is fruit and nuts / by Hereward Carrington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    birds, etc., which the cat follows. All this has its signifi- cance when it is remembered that dogs are much more easily weaned away from a flesh diet, on to one of milk, bread, biscuits, etc., than are cats, who are very difficult to wean from their carnivorous habits. This, however, is by the way. In the bear family, again, the carnivorous character- istics are still less marked. The canine teeth are less and the molars and incisors more developed—^the latter having a flat but roughened crown. All this indicates a still nearer approach to a vegetable and fruit diet—as is actually the case. The bear, as is well known, is fond of berries, fruits of all kinds, milk and honey. Man, has, of course, two “ eye teeth,” which are more or less pointed, and that I do not deny. But these teeth are comparatively so small, when compared with the corresponding canines of the real carnivora, as to be altogether insignificant. When we examine the mouth of a person with normal teeth, we find that the teeth are almost exactly similar in size and shape so much so, in fact, that any person ignorant of the fact that we have “ carnivorous teeth ” in our heads (sup- posedly) cannot pick them out from the others ! He does not experience any such difficulty in selecting the carnivorous teeth of the tiger or the cat! Strange, is it not ? Even the omnivorous hog has teeth so much larger as to be totally dissimilar to those of man. Man’s teeth are so uniform that all traces of his carnivorous nature have entirely disappeared. The only reply that can be made to this criticism is that, although man’s carnivorous teeth are considerably smaller than those of the pure carnivora, they are still there, none the less and consequently man is entitled to live upon a certain amount of meat—though not to make it his chief or ex- clusive diet, as do the pure carnivora. The very fact