12 THE DESCENT OF MAN. Part I. 



often recurrent led to consumption. These monkeys 

 suffered also from apoplexy, inflammation of the bowels, 

 and cataract in the eye. The younger ones when shed- 

 ding 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 north-eastern xAirica 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 behaviour 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 offered them, they turned away with 

 disgust, but relished the juice of lemons. 4 An American 

 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 simi- 

 larly their whole nervous system is affected. 



Man is infested with internal parasites, sometimes 

 causing fatal effects, and is plagued by external para- 

 sites, 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 mys- 

 terious law, which causes certain normal processes, such 

 as gestation, as well as the maturation and duration of 

 various diseases, to follow lunar periods. 5 His wounds 



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

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



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

 Vital Periodicity,' British Association, 1842. Dr. Macculloch, ' Silli- 



