

SPECIAL DIET OF VARIOUS RACES 171 



grown up as he has spread over the earth's surface. 

 Every race and even many a small group of men has 

 its accustomed diet, to depart from which is a pain and a 

 difficulty, even though new kinds of food may be gradually 

 accepted and even become popular. Man has in this, as 

 in so many other things, a large range of possible accom- 

 modation, but he has at the same time habits the 

 continuance of which are necessary for the healthy working 

 of the nervous system. The psychical element in the 

 matter of food-habit is important in all higher animals, 

 but most of all in man. The digestive organs are con- 

 trolled by the nervous system, and the brain acts upon the 

 latter in such a way as to favour or to restrain the " appe- 

 tite " and the secretion of the elaborate digestive juices, so 

 that fear, surprise, disgust, and u nausea " (that strange 

 product of mental and physical reactions) may destroy 

 appetite and inhibit the digestive process. There are vast 

 populations of men who live on rice, or beans, or meal, 

 and never eat animal food, not even milk (after babyhood), 

 nor cheese, and would be, at a first attempt to eat it, " put 

 off" and disgusted by a mutton chop. There are others 

 who subsist almost entirely on fish, others who live on 

 dried beef, others who live on the fat of whales and seals, 

 and would be for a generation or two injured, half starved, 

 and some of them even killed, by a change of diet. Again, 

 there are others who consider that they must have and 

 would be " ill " unless they had the cooked flesh of an ox 

 or sheep as part of their daily food. Let us examine this 

 latter group a little more fully a group to which the 

 nations of Europe belong, with the exception of the Italians, 

 who are essentially a meal-, fruit-, and cheese-eating 

 people. 



Apparently at a very early time, even before the last 

 glacial period, man had learnt the use of fire, and roasted 

 or grilled the carcases of other animals which he killed 



