THE ECONOMY OF THE HUMAN STOMACH.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6782, 14 February 1884, Page 4

THE ECONOMY OF THE HUMAN STOMACH.

After long and carefully made digests of mathematical calculations and practical experiments, science has reached the conclusion that a stomach ia cheaper to keep than a gizzard. In proportion to their respective sizes and weight, a bird's appetite ia somewhere near twenty times as . great as a man's. If an English sparrow eats at a single meal one of the largest snails produced by its native coun- . try, as he frequently does, a man with a gizzard would require a whole round' of beef at one sitting. The robin redbreast, again, requires a daily portion of food equal to fourteen lineal feet of fishworm to. keep him in a normal condition of health. Preserving the proportions, such a gizzard appetite in a r. man would demand of the largest bologna MjvM&^r. ■•-',• :.- ■■■■ "-■- '- --. ■ -

sausage known to the German population, a diurnal longitudinal mass equal to sixty-seven feet. Given, man afc large a gizzard, multiply the resulting consumptive power by the earth's population, and the result would be appalling. No man could earn sufficient to eat, and the products of all lands would he totally inadequate to the market demand. It were better that in the economy of nature men continue to be supplied with stomachs, and that gizzards be relegated to the bipeds of the feathered species, except so far as the word "gizzard" may be used in the figurative sense to indicate the presence in man of that plac3 where he carries his "grit."