1876.] 
The Great Dietetic Reform. 
25 
the vegetarian tolerates is quite as likely to be injurious as 
those which he denounces and avoids. 
Flesh, we are told, is not the “ natural food ” of man. 
In reply, we beg for an explanation of the apparently simple 
phrase “ natural food.” If we consider every animal species 
as a something unalterably fixed, destined to inhabit some 
particular region and to feed upon some especial article, for 
obtaining and digesting which it has been pre-adapted, the 
words have a very definite meaning ; but if we regard the 
species as something mutable alike in its organisation, its 
habitat, and its diet, the natural food of any animal signifies 
merely the class of substances which we find it for the time 
being in the habit of consuming. Such substances need 
not be the best possible, but may often be merely the best 
procurable. An analogous feature in vegetable life has been 
pointed out by Dean Herbert. We must not suppose, e.g., 
that if we find a plant growing on moorlands, that moor- 
land soil is the best adapted to its wants ; it might thrive 
much better in rich, deep, loamy soils — only there it en- 
counters dangerous competitors, which in a thin moorland 
soil cannot exist at all. 
Now if we, bearing these considerations in mind, enquire 
again what is the “ natural food ” of man, we shall be forced 
to admit that he is semi-carnivorous. As a rule he prefers 
a diet consisting, in part at least, of the flesh of animals. 
This craving for flesh is not a matter of climate ; it is expe- 
rienced in equatorial regions as decidedly as in semi-ardtic 
Britain, or even in polar lands.* Nay, where animal food 
is scarce, there cannibalism is most general. It is true that 
ancient traditions seem to point to a time when man, like 
the other anthropoids, was purely frugivorous ; but we have 
to do not with pre-historic man, but with man as at present 
constituted and situated : what he was in earlier stages of 
his development may be a matter of speculative interest, 
but can throw no light upon the diet he ought to adopt 
to-day. 
Again, it is urged that we have a natural repugnance to 
animal food which is only rendered palatable by the artifi- 
cial processes of cookery : this, also, is an error. The 
Tartar, when setting out on a journey, will place a piece of 
raw meat beneath his saddle, and, after a ride of some four 
or five hours, consume it eagerly, with no other preparation. 
The German will eat raw ham, Trichince included, with evi- 
dent relish. A very large proportion of the meat consumed 
* Bates, Naturalist on the Amazon, vol. ii., p. 214. 
VOL. VI. (N.S.) 
E 
