[6] 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? _The Stomach._—The position and form of the _stomach_ are also of significance. In the carnivora, it is only a small roundish sack, exceedingly simple in structure; while in the vegetable feeders it is oblong, lies transversely across the abdomen, and is more or less complicated with ringlike convolutions—according to the nature of the food. This appears conspicuously in the primates, which include man, in the Rodentia, Edentata, Marsupials, and, above all, in the Ruminants. In the latter, it presents a series of from four to seven wide, adjoining and communicating sacks. At a first superficial glance at the exteriors of the stomachs of the carnivora and that of man, we apparently perceive a far closer resemblance than between man’s stomach and that of a herbivorous animal. In one sense, there can be no question that there is a closer similarity; in another sense, it is not so. In man this organ is simple, but is divided into a cardiac and pyloric portion—thus occupying, as in many other anatomical respects, a middle line between the carnivorous and herbivorous mammalia. The inner surface of the stomach is covered with _rugæ_, or wrinkles, formed by the mucous membrane, which lines the whole intestinal canal, and which forms valvular folds; while in the carnivora the stomach is a simple globular sac, without these corrugations. As Dr Trall observed[7]: [7] “Fruits and Farinacea,” pp. 82-83.