Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2- Appendix): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

APPENDIX. ' 145 of ornament. Their teeth are generally good, regular, and healthy, arising in all probability from the sj'stem being free from any con- stitutional taint. The viscera of the thorax were healthy, the heart particularly so, with its valves and columna carnosa in good order ; the lower part of the thorax and the whole parietes of the abdomen were unusually expanded ; the liver very large though healthy, occupying the right hj'pochondriac and lumbar, the epigastric, and left hypochondriac regions; the spleen remarkably small; the stomach of a moderate size, and containing some muscles and limpets in a half-digested state ; the intestines were filled with flatus, which probably took place after death. The large size of the abdomen is to be referred to the squatting position these people assume, the knees and thighs being brought up against the lower part of the belly, force the viscera and intestines upward and forw'ard, thereby distending the lower part of the thorax and front of the abdomen. Here is a peculiarity from habit becoming inherent in the constitution, and descendmg to posterity, as the children, male and female, are bom with large bellies. In like manner Chinese children, from their parents' custom of compressing the feet, are born ^^-ith them remark- ably small. Besides distending the abdomen mechanically — to this bent posi- tion is to be traced the enlarged state of the abdominal viscera, the passage of blood to the extremities being obstructed ; an unusual quantity is thereby determined to, and circulated in, the coehac and mesenteric arteries ; the want of support from dress is also to be taken into account. From this stretched and distended state of the abdomen, separating the fibres of the obhque and transverse muscles, and the open state of the inguinal rings, these people must be peculiarly liable on any exertion to ventral hernia : these passages I found open in this individual ; and they appeared to be in the same state in other men whom I examined. Cardiac affections mostly prevail among those who are subject to ^'iolent exercise, as porters, carriers, and artillerymen. The healthy state of this heart, which it is probable wiU be generally the case among the Fuegians, is to be imputed to their moderate exertions. In their canoes they are employed fishing or paddling ; in their wigwams, which are seldom many yards from the beach, cooking or maldng small wares of the bones or skins of beasts. The cremaster muscle was strong and