SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OF MAN. 135 



which the vegetable creation furnishes man. Thus, 

 in many places of intertropical Africa, the lower ani- 

 mals, whose numbers are few, are occasionally made 

 sacred by the priests for a time; in other places, espe- 

 cially on the western coast of this continent, the use 

 of animal food is seldom enjoyed, unless occasionally 

 that which is derived from those prohibited spe- 

 cies. In Hindostan, the natives are debarred from 

 the use of animal food, and the cow is made sacred, 

 evidently to prevent the destruction of a species 

 whose milk furnishes man with one of the chief 

 articles of diet. But those religious precautions are 

 not only requisite, with a view of preventing the 

 destruction of a species subservent to the existence 

 of man, they are also necessary to his own health; 

 and the very scarcity, or even the entire absence, 

 of all animal food, is requisite to secure the inhabi- 

 tants from being entirely swept away by the endemic 

 and epidemic diseases to which those intertropical 

 countries are particularly subject, and which the 

 use of animal food would inevitably aggravate. 

 The grain, the roots, and the fruit on. which the 

 natives of these climates subsist, are better suited 

 than any other kind of food, to nourish the body 

 without exciting it; and while the kind of vegetable 

 diet, w T hich the hottest and most unhealthy climates 

 furnish, tends the least to excite the nervous and 

 sanguiferous systems, it promotes strength and 

 endurance, while the hot spices, which are pro- 

 duced in the same situations, serve to preserve the 

 animal body against the septic tendencies and the 



