60 FOOD. 



" Although thirst is a violent desire, drink appears not very 

 necessary to life and health ; for many warm-blooded animals 

 mice, quails, parrots, &c. do not drink at all ; and some indivi- 

 duals of the human species have lived in perfect health and 

 strength without tasting liquids." 5 



Sauvages mentions a member of the Academy of Toulouse who 

 never thirsted, and passed whole months of the hottest summer 

 without drinking ; and a woman who passed 40 days without 

 liquids or thirst. l 



" It has been disputed whether our food, by which we satisfy 

 these stimuli, is derived more advantageously, and the more con- 

 sistently with nature, from the animal or from the vegetable 

 kingdom. u 



" Some contend that man is herbivorous, from the shape of his 

 teeth Y , the length of his intestines y, the difference between the 

 structure of the small and large intestines, and from the cells of 

 the colon, &c. Rousseau ingeniously urges the circumstance 

 that woman is naturally uniparous and provided with two breasts. 2 

 To these arguments it may be added, that some men have rumi- 

 nated, a power peculiar to herbivorous animals*, and that tame 



s " See G. Baker, Med. Transact, published by the Coll. of Physicians in London, 

 vol. ii. p. 265. sq." 



1 " Nosol. Method, t. i. p. 770. 



See also Eph. Nat. Cur. c. v. and vi. p. 30." 



u " J. W. Neergaard, Vergleichende Anatomic und Physiologic der Verdauungs- 

 werkzeuge der Saiigethiere und Vogel. Berlin, 1806, p. 244." 



* " Gassendi, Letter to J. Bapt. v. Helmont. Opera. Florence, 1727, fol. 

 t. vi. p. 17. Al. Monro, senr. Essay on Comparative Anatomy, p. 17." 



y J. Wallis, Phil. Trans. No. 269." 



z " Sur rOrigine de flnegalite parmi les Hommes, p. 196. sq." 



a A striking instance of this occurred at Bristol. A man twenty years of age 

 had, as long as he could remember, chewed his food a second time, after swallow- 

 ing it. The process began in a quarter of an hour if he had taken liquid at his 

 meal later if he had not : and, after a full meal, lasted about an hour and a half. 

 What had passed down first, always came up first. Before the second chewing, 

 his food appeared to 1'e heavy in the lowest part of his throat : after it, " the food 

 passed clean away." If he ate a variety, " that which passed down first came 

 up first." He found the taste of the food on its return to be chewed rather plea- 

 sant'er than at first. " If this faculty left him it signified sickness, and he was 

 never well till it returned." His father had sometimes ruminated slightly. (Phil. 

 Trans, Abridgment, vol. iii. p. 110. sq.) 



