:) interesting article..well...i thought so...

[Guest guest]

http://www.europeanvegetarian.org/evu/english/news/news962/omnivore.html

 

Omnivorous or Vegetarian?

What famous naturalists think about it

 

by Professor Luis Vallejo Rodríguez

 

Deutsch - Español - from EVU News, Issue 2 / 1996 - Français

 

 

--

 

 

Professor. Luis Vallejo Rodríguez, Secretary of the Canarian Vegetarian

Association

 

Nowadays it is extensively claimed that man must eat meat to have a balanced

diet containing proteins of good quality. Furthermore this is what is said by

outstanding doctors like Dr. Francisco Grande Govian who has recently died,

considered as the greatest authority on nutrition in Spain. To this we have to

add that the Ministry of Health recommend eating meat and that most people eat

it and consider to be good food. However, considering all this it is surprising

that the most famous naturalists in humanity were vegetarians or, at least, they

declared one after the other that man is vegetarian by nature.

 

We have to consider that the words 'vegetarian' and 'vegetarianism' first

appeared about 1838 so before that date they do not appear in any writing and

for this reason they speak about vegetable food or vegetable diet. The

inexistance of these words makes investigation difficult.

 

Furthermore we have to add that to know whether or not a famous naturalist was a

vegetarian we must read the biographies of each of them. Biographies difficult

or impossible to obtain as not all of them have been written. If biographies

have been written about famous artists, very little has been written about

scientists. To this difficulty we have to add another one: the scarce or no

importance which biographers pay to the eating habits of the people they write

about. So for example Colin Spencer complains in his book The Heretics Feast

that among 60 biographies about Leonardo Da Vinci only two of his biographers

mention that he was a vegetarian. Even with all these difficulties the

declarations of the most famous naturalists of humanity have had one very clear

message and as proof you can read what they have said: John Ray (1628-1704) was

called the father of English Natural History and in his honour a society was

founded which carries his name: The Ray Society. According to John Ray: " There

is no doubt, that man is not built to be a carnivorous animal " . And furthermore

he declares:

 

" What a sweet, pleasing and innocent sight is the spectacle of a table served

that way and what a difference to a make up of fuming animal meat, slaughtered

and dead! Man in no way has the constitution of a carnivorous being. Hunt and

voracity are unnatural to him. Man has neither the sharp pointed teeth or claws

to slaughter his prey. On the contrary his hands are made to pick fruits,

berries and vegetables and teeth appropriate to chew them. "

" Everything we need to feed ourselves and to restore and please us is abundantly

provided in the inexhaustible store of Nature. What a sweet, pleasing and

innocent sight is a table frugally provided and what a difference from a meal

composed of fuming and slaughtered animal meat. In short our orchards offer all

the delights imaginable while the slaughter houses and butchers are full of

congealed blood and abominable stench. "

Another famous naturalist was Carl Linnée (1707-1778), a doctor of the Swedish

Navy, president of the Academy of Science and professor of Botany at Stockholm

and the University of Upsala. Linnée created the method of natural

classification of plants and animals that is still used today although more than

two centuries have passed. Linnée wrote:

" Edible fruits and plants constitute the most appropriate food for man. "

" According to his anatomy, man has not been physiologically prepared to eat

meat. "

" Fruits are the most adequate food for man according to that demonstrated by the

analogy of quadrupeds in the structure in his teeth and digestive apparatus.

The French naturalist George Louis Leclerc, more commonly known as Count Buffon

(1707-1788) was member of the Academy of Science, administrator of the Garden of

the King and with several collaborators wrote 'Natural History' in 36 volumes.

Buffon stated that:

" Man could live on vegetables alone. However the whole of nature is not enough

to satisfy his intemperance and the inconsistent variety of his appetite. Man by

himself consumes and devours more meat than all the other animals together and

not out of necessity but as a form of abuse. "

A collaborator of Buffon was Dr. Luis Maria D'Aubenton, more commonly known as

Daubenton (1716-1799). He was a professor of Minerology at the Garden of the

King and of Natural History at the School of Medicine. D'aubenton said, that:

" It is to be presumed that man, while he lives in a natural state and a graded

climate, where the earth spontaneously produces every type of fruit, he feeds

himself with these and does not eat animals. "

George Cuvier (1769-1832) was a French naturalist, anatomist and geologist. He

was a professor at the School and Museum of France, Secretary of the Academy of

Sciences and Chancellor of the University. He created the theory of Compared

Anatomy and Palaeontology. Thanks to his studies we have been able to

reconstruct species which have disappeared. Cuvier received the distinctions and

titles of Baron and grand official of the Legion of Honour and was honoured by

Napoleon I, Louis XVIII and Louis Philip. Cuvier stated in his work: Lessons of

Compared Anatomy, that:

" The compared anatomy shows us that man in every way is like the frugivorous

animals and no way like the carnivorous animals... Disguising the dead meat by

culinary preparations, the outward appearance is changed and tenderised because

the sight of raw and bloody meat only exited horror and disgust in man. "

Lets look at some statements made by Cuvier:

" According to the constitution of mans principle organs, it has been

demonstrated that his nourishment should not consist of any other thing than

vegetables. "

" Mans natural food, judging from his structure, should consist of fruits, roots

and vegetables. "

" The whole of the human body even down to the slightest detail is destined by

nature for an exclusively vegetable diet. "

" Man appears to be organized to feed on fruits, roots and the succulent parts of

vegetables. His short mandibles of medium force, his canines of the same length

as his other teeth, and his tuberous molars do not permit him to chew grass or

devour meat without preparing these foods through cooking. His digestive organs

are formed in accordance with the disposition of his teeth. His stomach is

simple and his intestine canal is of medium length and very well fixed to his

large intestine. "

Alexander von Humbold (1769-1859) was a German naturalist, explorer and

geographer. He carried out studies on magnetism and supported the theory of the

igneous origin of rocks. He is considered to be the founder of Climathology,

Terrestrial Morphology, Physical Geogrophy of the Oceans and the Geography of

the Planets. He wrote a book in 30 volumes entitled Cosmos and Trips to

Equimoctial Regions of the New World. Humbold stated that:

" Eating animals as food is not far away from athropophagy and cannibalism. The

same amount of land used to graze and feed cattle could feed ten people, if

however we cultivated it with lentils, kidney beans or peas it could feed a

hundred people....The Orinoco basin can produce sufficient bananas to feed the

whole of mankind comfortably. "

Richard Owen (1804-1892) was an English naturalist who studied with Cuvier,

catalogued the Hunter Collection of the British Museum and organized the Natural

History Museum in South Kensington. He studied anatomy and compared Physiology

and Palaeontology. He wrote A Course in Compared Anatomy and Palaeontology and

Physiology in Vertebrae. Owen stated:

" The anthropoids and all quadumanous derive their nourishment from fruits,

grains and other succulent vegetable substances and the strict analogy between

the structure of those animals and man clearly demonstrates their natural

frugivorousness. "

" The apes, whose dentition is almost equal to that of man, lives principally on

fruit, seeds, nuts and other similar kinds of savoury textures of nutritious

value which are elaborated by the vegetable kingdom. The profound similarity

between the dentition of quadrupeds and that of humans demonstrates that man was

from his origins adapted to eat fruit from the trees in Paradise. "

Of course, the most famous of all British naturalists also agreed with the other

naturalists. I am referring to Charles Darwin (1800-1882) who at the age of 22

years started on a journey around the world which lasted 5 years. On this

journey Darwin collected material which served to publish his most famous book

in 1859: The Origin of Species by Natural Selection: Darwin was a member of the

Royal Society of London and after his death he was buried in Westminster Abbey

with great funeral honours and diplomatic representatives from many great

nations were present at his funeral. Darwin wrote:

" The grading of forms, organic functions, customs and diets showed in an evident

way that the normal food of man is vegetable like the anthropoids and apes and

that our canine teeth are less developed than theirs and that we are not

destined to compete with wild beasts or carnivorous animals. "

In his book The Origin of Man he tells us:

" Although we know nothing for certain about the time or place that man shed the

thick hair that covered him, with much probability of being right we could say

that he must have lived in a warm country where conditions were favourable to

the frugivorous way of life which, to judge from analogies, must have been the

way man lived. "

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) was an English doctor and anthropologist who

supported Darwin's theories and became the president of the Royal Society. Among

other books he wrote Zoological Evidences as to Man's Place in Nature and

Compared Anatomy. Let's look at some of Huxleys' statements:

" Man came before the axe and fire so he couldn't be carnivorous. "

" The length of mans digestive tube is 5-8 meters and the distance between the

mouth and the coccyx is 50 to 80 centimetres, which gives us a result of 10 as

in other frugivorous animals and not 3 as in the carnivorous or 20 as in the

herbivorous animals. "

" The only animal with probable omnivorous morphology that exists, is the bear,

which has some pointed teeth and others that are flat. "

Sir Arthur Keith (1866-1955) was a famous English anatomist and anthropologist.

Together with Martin Flack he discovered the sinoauricular nodule which is where

cardiac contractions originate. He was Rector of Aberdeen University and wrote:

Instruction to the Study of Anthropoid Apes Ancient Types of Man and Essays

about Evolution of Humans. This anthropologist tells us that:

" Chimpanzees and gorillas have the same digestive mechanisms as man does. That

is the proof of compared anatomy in favour of a diet of crude vegetables which

permits the fermentation to produce several disposals daily, soft and free from

putrefaction. "

 

--

 

These are the researches by the most famous naturalists that mankind has had. We

have to observe that their studies were frequently supported and made reference

by comparing the anatomy of man to that of other mammals, especially the ape

family, and speak to us about the formation of teeth and digestive tubes of

these animals. In this way all these famous naturalists arrived at the same

impressive conclusion: man is vegetarian by nature, and if the word vegetarian

does not appear in their writings, it is because the word did not exist before

or until 1838 and the studies of all the famous naturalists were written before

that date.

 

We could argue against vegetarianism that the pictures of pre-historic man on

the rocks the cavern show him as a hunter. However this does not necessarily

mean, that meat is the ideal form of food for man. Furthermore, we have to take

into account, that the anthropologist Alan Walker of John Hopkins University,

when studying the grooves of fossilized teeth, found a diverse assortment of

different foods. He claimed that our first human ancestors did not live

predominantly on meat, nor seeds, buds, leaves or grass, neither were they

omnivorous. It seems that they subsisted principally on a diet of fruit.

Exceptions have not been found. Each tooth was examined and those coming from

hominids of the period twelve million years ago, which are in direct line to

Homo Erectus, proved to be fruit eaters.

 

In conclusion I want to ask the reader the following question: Is man by nature

a vegetarian? Nowadays most doctors tell us, that he is not, but the most famous

naturalists have all deduced, that he is.

 

If this is really so, only a small minority of the population of developed

countries, the people we call vegetarians would be eating correctly, whilst the

great majority of the population would be eating incorrectly.

 

Dr. Luis Vallejo Rodríguez

Secretary of the Canarian Vegetarian Association

Apartado 3557, Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain

 

Professor Rodriguez has published three books in Spanish:

 

La curación del cáncer por limpieza del intestino grueso (1990)

Alimentación y éxito escolar (1991)

El cancer y los intereses creados (1993)

 

 

--

 

 

 

 

© European Vegetarian Union - http://www.ivu.org/evu

[Guest guest]

Thanks Fraggle - that was interesting.

 

Jo

>

Tuesday, July 30, 2002 5:02 PM

interesting article..well...i thought so...

 

 

---

Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.

Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).

Version: 6.0.375 / Virus Database: 210 - Release 10/07/02