i6a VEGETARIANS AND THEIR TEETH 



canines or "dog-teeth " as weapons of attack, but the cheek- 

 teeth (very few in number) present a long, sharp-edged 

 ridge running parallel to the length of the jaw, the edges 

 of which in corresponding upper and lower teeth fit and 

 work together like the blades of a pair of scissors. The 

 cats (including the lions, tigers and leopards) have this^ 

 arrangement in perfection (see Figs. 26 and 27). They 

 cut the bones and muscles of their prey into great lumps 

 with the scissor-like cheek-teeth, and swallow great pieces 

 whole without mastication. Insect-eating mammals have 

 cheek-teeth with three or four sharp-pointed tubercles 

 standing up on the surface. They break the hard-shelled 

 insects and swallow them rapidly. The fish-eating whales 

 have an immense number, of peg-like pointed teeth only. 

 These serve as do those of the seals — merely to catch and 

 grip the fish, which are swallowed whole. 



It is quite clear that man's cheek-teeth do not enable 

 him to cut lumps of meat and bone from raw carcases and 

 swallow them whole, nor to grip live fish and swallow them 

 straight off (PI. VII). They are broad, square-surfaced 

 teeth, with four or fewer low rounded tubercles fitted to 

 crush soft food, as are those of monkeys (see Pis. VIII 

 and IX, and their description). And there can be no 

 doubt that man fed originally, like monkeys, on easily 

 crushed fruits, nuts, and roots. He could not eat like a cat. 



A fundamental mistake has arisen amongst some of the 

 advocates of vegetarianism by the use of the words " carni- 

 vorous " and " flesh-eating " in an ill-defined way. Man 

 has never eaten lumps of raw meat and bone, and no one 

 proposes that he should do so to-day. Man did not take 

 to meat-eating until he had acquired the use of fire, and 

 had learnt to cook the meat before he ate it He thus 

 separated the bone and intractable sinew from the flesh, 

 which he rendered friable and divisible by thorough grilling, 

 roasting, or baking. To eat meat thus altered, both chemi- 



