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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Karl Höchberg   25 February 1879

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Feb. 25th 79

Dear Sir

I have so many letters to answer that I must write briefly; but this does not signify as I have never attended specially to the subject of vegetarian diet.—1 The sole evidence which in my opinion would be of real value, would be statistics & amount of work performed in countries where the inhabitants live on widely different diets. I have always been struck with the fact that the hardest workers, whom I ever saw, namely miners in Chile, lived exclusively on vegetable diet including much seeds of the Leguminosæ. On the other hand the Gauchos are very fine active men, who live almost exclusively on meat. Again there seems good evidence that in Tropical Africa there is an extraordinary craving, almost amounting to a necessity, for meat at intervals; & yet I suppose that they eat largely of the seeds of Leguminosæ, for the Arachis hypogæa is largely cultivated.2

Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

In his letter of 21 February 1879, Höchberg had set out arguments for a vegetarian diet, including one that invoked the Darwinian thesis of the relatedness of humans and anthropoid apes, and asked CD for his views.
CD described the diets of Chilean miners and gauchos in Journal of researches, pp. 136 and 317. Arachis hypogaea (peanut) was a member of the Leguminosae (a synonym of Fabaceae, the family of peas and beans).

Bibliography

Journal of researches: Journal of researches into the geology and natural history of the various countries visited by HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain FitzRoy, RN, from 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Henry Colburn. 1839.

Summary

Discusses the value of a vegetable diet.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11902
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Karl Höchberg
Sent from
Down
Source of text
American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.560)
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11902,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11902.xml

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