Note 6 — II THE ARGUMENT FROM COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

I would point out, in this connection, however, that, apart from this possible shortening of the small intestine, no anatomical changes whatever have resulted from a partially carnivorous diet for the hundreds of years that have preceded us, and upon which man still largely subsists. Doubtless this is partly due to the fact that much other food was always eaten with the meat consumed; and also the fact that the poorer classes—the peasantry, etc.—were unable to purchase large quantities of meat at any time—and hence to eat it. With them it was always an occasional luxury, rather than a steady article of diet. The interesting fact is, however, that, in spite of these hundreds of years of abuse, the human alimentary tract still maintains all the characteristics of the frugivorous animal, and in no way resembles the carnivorous alimentary tract! Had our hundreds of years of flesh-eating enabled us to subsist upon such a diet with impunity—or even adapted the human body to the diet in any degree—as is frequently contended—then our alimentary tract would indicate that fact by its evolutionary modifications. As this is not the case, however, what becomes of the argument that meat is a necessary article of diet, because man has subsisted largely upon it for hundreds of years?