FOOD OF MAN. 541 



Sweden as bread meal, and even more as a luxury like tobacco than 

 as a necessary. In Finland, the earth is occasionally mixed with the 

 bread. It consists of empty shells of animalcules, so small and soft as 

 not to cranch perceptibly between the teeth, filling the stomach, but 

 affording no real nutriment. Many similar cases are recorded by Hum- 

 boldt. 1 



Animals are often characterized by the kind of food on which they 

 subsist. The carnivorous feed on flesh ; the piscivorous on fish ; the 

 insectivorous on insects ; the phytivorous on vegetables ; the granivorous 

 on seeds ; ihefrugivorous on fruits ; the graminivorous and herbivorous 

 on grasses ; and the omnivorous on the products of both the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. In antiquity, we find whole tribes designated 

 according to the aliment they chiefly used. Thus, there were the Ethio- 

 pian and Asiatic ichthyophagi or fish-eaters ; the hylophagi, who fed on 

 the young shoots of trees ; the elephantophagi, and struthiophagi, ele- 

 phant and ostrich-eaters, &c. &c. 



We have already shown, that the digestive apparatus of man is inter- 

 mediate between that of the carnivorous and the herbivorous animal; 

 that it partakes of both, and that man may, consequently, be regarded 

 omnivorous ; that is, capable of subsisting on both the products of the 

 animal and the vegetable kingdom ; an important capability, seeing, that 

 he is destined to live in arctic regions, in which vegetable food is not to 

 be met with, as well as in the torrid zone, which is more favorable for 

 vegetable than animal life. 



The nature of the country must, to a great extent, regulate the food 

 of its inhabitants ; for although commerce can furnish articles of luxury, 

 and many, which are looked upon as necessaries, no nation is entirely 

 indebted to it for its supplies. Besides, numerous extensive tribes of 

 the human family are denied the advantages of commerce, and com- 

 pelled to subsist on their own resources. This is the main cause why 

 the Esquimaux, Samoiedes, &c., live wholly on animal food ; and why 

 the cocoa-nut, plantain, banana, sago, yam, cassava, maize and millet, 

 form chief articles of diet with the natives of torrid regions. 



In certain countries, the scanty supply of the useful and edible ani- 

 mals has given occasion to certain prohibitory dietetic rules and regula- 

 tions, which have been made to form part of the religious creed, and, of 

 course, are most scrupulously observed. Thus, in Hindoostan, animal 

 food is not permitted to be eaten; but the milk of the cow is excepted. 

 Accordingly, to insure the necessary supply of this fluid, the cow is 

 made sacred ; and its destruction a crime against religion. Amongst 

 the laws of the Egyptians are similar edicts, but they seem to have 

 been chiefly enacted for political purposes, and not in consequence of 

 the unwholesome character of the interdicted articles. The same 

 remark applies to many of the dietetic rules of Moses, for the regula- 

 tion of the tables of the Hebrews. Blood was forbidden, in consequence, 

 probably, of the fear entertained, that it might render the people too 

 familiar with that fluid, and diminish the horror inculcated against 



1 Ansichten der Natnr; translated under the title of Aspects of Nature, by Mrs. Sabine, 

 Amer. edit., p. 159, Philad., 1849. 



