450 
DARWINISM 
CHAP. 
the minute structure of the tissues, the nature of the blood, 
the nerves, and the brain. Such diseases as hydrophobia, 
variola, the glanders, cholera, herpes, etc,, can be transmitted 
from animals to man or the reverse; while monkeys are liable 
to many of the same non-contagious diseases as we are. 
Rengger, who carefully observed the common monkey (Cebus 
Azarse) in Paraguay, found it liable to catarrh, with the usual 
symptoms, terminating sometimes in consumption. These 
monkeys also suffered from apoplexy, inflammation of the 
bowels, and cataract in the eye. Medicines produced the 
same effect upon them as upon us. Many kinds of monkeys 
have a strong taste for tea, coffee, spirits, and even tobacco. 
These facts show the similarity of the nerves of taste in 
monkeys and in ourselves, and that their whole nervous 
system is affected in a similar way. Even the parasites, both 
external and internal, that affect man are not altogether 
peculiar to him, but belong to the same families or genera as 
those which infest animals, and in one case, scabies, even the 
same species. 1 These curious facts seem quite inconsistent 
with the idea that man’s bodily structure and nature are 
altogether distinct from those of animals, and have had a 
different origin; while the facts are just what we should 
expect if he has been produced by descent with modification 
from some common ancestor. 
The Animals most nearly Allied to Man. 
By universal consent we see in the monkey tribe a 
caricature of humanity. Their faces, their hands, their 
actions and expressions present ludicrous resemblances to our 
own. But there is one group of this great tribe in which this 
resemblance is greatest, and they have hence been called the 
anthropoid or man-like apes. These are few in number, and 
inhabit only the equatorial regions of Africa and Asia, countries 
where the climate is most uniform, the forests densest, and 
the supply of fruit abundant throughout the year. These 
animals are now comparatively well known, consisting of the 
orang-utan of Borneo and Sumatra, the chimpanzee and the 
gorilla of West Africa, and the group of gibbons or long-armed 
apes, consisting of many species and inhabiting South-Eastern 
1 The Descent of Man, pp. 7, 8. 
