Compar'ifoTi between the Human Race and Swine. 287 



Another reafon, however, why I have made choice of 

 fwine for the prefent companion is, bccaufe the degenera- 

 tion and defcent from the original race are far more certain in 

 thefe two animals, and can be better traced than in the va- 

 rieties of other domeftic animals. For no naturalift, I be- 

 lieve, has carried his fcepticifm fo far as to donbtthe defcent! 

 of the domeftic fwine from the wild boar ; which is fo much 

 the more evident, as it is well known that wild pigs, when 

 caught, may be eafily rendered as tame and familiar as do- 

 meftic fwine* : and the contrary alfo is the cafe; for if the 

 latter by any accident get into the woods, they as readily 

 become wild again, fo that there are inftances of fuch animals 

 being fhot for wild fwine ; and it has not been till they were 

 opened and found caftrated, that people were led to a difco- 

 very of their origin, and how and at what time they ran 

 away f . It is well afcertained, that, before the difcovery of 

 .America by the Spaniards, fwine were unknown in that 

 quarter of the world, and that they were afterwards carried 

 thither from Europe. All the varieties, therefore, through 



Manual of Nar. Hiftory, p. 464, th.it Goze was the firft who placed the 

 am:nal nature of the meaftc in fwine beyond all doubt. I now find that 

 in the laft century Ma'.pighi gave an accurate defcription of the difeafe, 

 :.cc .mpariicd alfo with a figure of the worms. See his Opera Pojlbuma, 

 London 1697, fol. p. 84. " In fuibus vcrminofis, qui vulgariter laz.aroli 

 dicuntur, multiplies ftabulantur vermes, unde horum animalium catnes 

 publico ediito prohibentur. Occurrunt autem copiofi intra fibras mufcu- 

 lofas natium ; obvia namquc oblonga vefica quafi folliculus diaphano hu- 

 more refertus, in quo natat globofum corpus candidum, quod difrupto 

 foliiculo kviter comprefTum eruftat vermcm,qui foras exeritur, et videtur 

 crnulari comua crnilfilia cochJearum, ejus enim annuli intra fe reflex: con- 

 duntur, et ita conglobatur animal. In aj)ice attollitur capitulum. A con- 

 globato venne ad extrenmm folliculi umbilicale quafi vas producitur." The 

 late Werner, as far as I know, was the iirft who difcovcrcd in the human 

 body the fame kind of worms as thofc found in meaflcd fwine. 



* This experiment was not long ago made with the bell confequences 

 in the abbey of St. Uiban, in the canton of Lucerne. 



t Sec Lehmann's Naturlicbe merkuiirdigkeiten im Mcijfnifcben ObeV' 

 trtxgebifge, p. 605. 



which 



