THE STOMACH RULES THE WORLD!

Great Britain has contributed countless cultural, scientific and technological benefits to the world. But the British contribution includes also a contingent, probably larger than that of any other country, of unconventional, original individuals, the notorious English “eccentrics.” Most germane to the present discussion is the Reverend Dr William Buckland (1784-1856), Dean of Christ Church, eminent geologist, and “zoophage” extraordinaire. It has been said that his cherished ambition was to carve himself a pathway through life with knife and fork, eating every living animal in existence. He prized himself on being the man who ate everything.

Buckland excavated one of the oldest human remains ever found, and was the first person to teach geology at Oxford University. As a lecturer he was immensely popular: his diction was clear, his delivery lively, and he moved around holding specimens, telling jokes, and imitating the gait of extinct animals. The following anecdote, told by one of his students, attests to the fact that Buckland earned a prominent place in geology and palæontology, as well as in gastronomy and the history of the stomach.

He paced like a Franciscan preacher up and down… He had in his hand a huge hyena’s skull. He suddenly dashed down the steps – rushed skull in hand at the first undergraduate on the front bench and shouted “What rules the world?” The youth, terrified, answered not a word. He rushed then on to me, pointing the hyena full in my face – “What rules the world?”

“Haven’t an idea,” I said. “The stomach, sir!” he cried “rules the world. The great ones eat the less, the less the lesser still!”¹

At his soirées, guests were likely to savour such delicacies as boiled hedgehogs, mice on toast, crocodile steaks, roast ostrich, porpoise, panther, or cooked puppies. Once, our man was visiting a cathedral and was shown some stains on the floor. The priest told him that according to a venerable old tradition,