THE FOOD OF MANKIND 25 



obtained, so greedily devoured would afford strong evidence that 

 certain " fundamental, instinctive, nutritional demands " have 

 been interfered with by the competition of a dense population, 

 and that the mass of the people are existing in a condition of 

 nitrogen starvation, and require far more assimilable protein 

 than their vegetable dietaries provide. 



The same desire for a mixed form of alimentation is met with 

 in all countries and climates. Thus Major Woodruff, Surgeon, 

 U.S.A., writing of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, 

 says : " The natives do not eat meat because they cannot get it. 

 They crave it, need it, and eat it when they can." Before the 

 emancipation of the Japanese from the strict tenets of Buddhism, 

 which prohibited the taking of life under any circumstances, 

 even for food, fish had to be allowed, just as is the case amongst 

 the Buddhists in India to-day. Fish not being a prohibited 

 article of diet, according to Japanese ideas anything that could 

 be called " fish," whatever might the stretch of the imagination 

 required to do so, could likewise be eaten. The eating-houses in 

 Japan advertised mountain whale, which really meant venison ; 

 so venison may be eaten. The same holds true for the natives 

 of India, from the highest inhabitable ranges of the Himalayas 

 to the plains of the southern parts of Madras. Except amongst 

 certain narrow sects where prejudice is rampant, animal food is 

 partaken of freely where financial conditions do not bar the way ; 

 and when cost is an obstacle, it is made use of to as great extent 

 as can be afforded. 



Mixed animal and vegetable food may therefore be looked upon 

 as the ordinary type of diet of the great majority of mankind, 

 despite the restrictions of country, climate, or race ; indeed, there 

 is distinct evidence of a striving after a mixed form of alimentation 

 in the evolution of man from the earliest geological periods 

 down to the present time. There can be little doubt but that 

 the evolution of man's diet has exerted a very marked influence 

 on the evolution of man himself and on his dissemination over 

 the face of the earth. Buckle affirms that the increasing supply 

 of food, " as wandering tribes advanced from the hunting to the 

 agricultural state, had momentous moral consequences by 

 diminishing dependence on mere chance, and opening the mind 

 to a conception of the stability of events and the laws of Nature ; 

 while of all physical agents by which the increase of population is 

 affected, food is the most active and universal. Where the 

 national food is cheap and abundant, population inevitably 



