Note 257 — Chapter XXXVIII
Reading edition
There is a consensus of scientific opinion that "non-meat eating" races such as the Japanese have longer alimentary tracts than flesh-eating Europeans. It is difficult to be precise on the subject, an eminent Western surgeon tells me, for bowels are as contractile as worms, which at one minute measure 100 units in length and the next minute have shortened to 30. So much depends on the state at death.