12 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



The younger ones when shedding their milk-teeth often 

 died from fever. ' Medicines produced the same effect on 

 them as on us. Many kinds of monkeys have a strong 

 taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors : they will also, 

 as I have myself seen, smoke tobacco with pleasure. 

 Brehm asserts that the natives of northeastern Africa 

 catch the wild baboons by exposing vessels with strong 

 beer, by which they are made drunk. He has seen some 

 of these animals, which he kept in confinement, in this 

 state ; and he gives a laughable account of their behavior 

 and strange grimaces. On the following morning they 

 were very cross and dismal ; they held their aching heads 

 with both hands and wore a most pitiable expression ; 

 when beer or wine was offerel them, they turned away 

 •with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons. 4 An Amer- 

 ican monkey, an Ateles, after getting drunk on brandy, 

 would never touch it again, and thus was wiser than many 

 men. These trifling facts prove how similar the nerves 

 of taste must be in monkeys and man, and how similarly 

 their whole nervous system is affected. 



Man is infested with internal parasites, sometimes 

 causing fatal effects, and is plagued by external parasites, 

 all of which belong to the same genera or families with 

 those infesting other mammals. Man is subject like other 

 mammals, birds, and even insects, to that mysterious law, 

 which causes certain normal processes, such as gestation, 

 as well as the maturation and duration of various diseases, 

 to follow lunar periods. 6 His wounds are repaired by the 

 same process of healing ; and the stumps left after the 



4 Brehm, ' Thierleben,' B. i. 1864, s. 75, 86. On the Ateles, s. 105. 

 For other analogous statements, see s. 25, 107. 



6 With respect to insects see Dr. Laycock ' On a General Law of 

 Vital Periodicity,' British Association, 1842. Dr. Macculloch, 'Silliman's 

 North American Journal of Science,' vol. xvii. p. 305, has seen a dog suf 

 fering from tertian ague. 

 • 



