Chapter II: Introduction

_DO WE EAT TOO MUCH?_
CAN WE LEARN TO EAT RIGHT?
WITHOUT LOSS OF ENJOYMENT?
WITHOUT CARE BEING A NUISANCE?
WITHOUT SOCIAL INTERFERENCE?
WITH ASSURANCE OF HEALTH?
WITH INCREASE OF ENERGY?
WITH INCREASE OF ENDURANCE?

* * * * *

TO ALL THESE VITAL QUESTIONS,
THIS BOOK ANSWERS ONLY “YES.”

* * * * *

VERIFY THIS BY PERSONAL EXPERIMENT.
IRRESISTIBLE DESIRE FOR PHYSICAL EXERCISE
WILL FOLLOW, AS A MATTER OF COURSE,
PROBABLY FRUITING IN USEFUL ACCOMPLISHMENT
BY THE SAME INVITATION OF HEALTHY IMPULSE
WHICH CAUSES CHILDREN TO PLAY TIRELESSLY.
DO RIGHT YOUR FEEDING OF THE BODY.
NATURE WILL DO ALL THE REST FOR YOU ARIGHT.

Introduction

DO WE EAT TOO MUCH?

(_A propos of the Scientific-Military Experiments at Yale University_)

Do we eat too much?

Nine out of every ten physicians tell us “Yes,” and tell us true!

How much too much?

* * * * *

Luigi Cornaro suggested that all persons in his time ate more than was necessary; most persons ate twice as much as was good for them; and some, who were extravagantly gluttonous, ate ten times as much as was their most economic need; and Cornaro, who was a dissipated wreck at forty, reformed his manner of eating and lived to be a hundred to prove his declaration.

Experiments carried on in this country and in Europe during the past five years confirm this estimate of habitual excess; but fortunately they have also revealed a natural protection, heretofore unappreciated, available to all, which can regulate the appetite to suit the real needs of nutrition and thus avoid the dangerous excess which predisposes to discomfort and disease.

* * * * *

Luigi Cornaro lived more than three hundred years ago. His charmingly frank and interesting autobiography has been published in English upwards of forty times in different new editions, and no one has disproved the possibility or probability of his claim. We all know that Cornaro was right. We know, in a general way, that the great Italian dietitian and philosopher was wise and uttered wisdom, and we are told that most, if not all, of the diseases which pain, worry, and afflict us are caused by indigestion or mal-assimilation of food, the result of some indiscretions of eating. The questions then are “What are our indiscretions?” “How can we avoid them?” and “What is the new discovery that will protect us and, at the same time, add to the pleasures of the palate and of living?”

The answers to all these queries will be found herein, as will also an explanation of the very active interest which is being taken just now in the problem of human nutrition by scientific and military authorities, as evidenced by the Yale investigation.

The author has, in collaboration with several others, found a way how _not to eat too much_ while eating _all that the appetite desires_, and in a way that leads to a _maximum of good taste_ and at a _minimum of cost and waste_, but it is necessary to test many persons of different physiques and varying temperaments, and also to test other methods of attainment of economy, to learn what is best for general application, and that is what is being done at Yale.

* * * * *

The cost to the pocket that is saved by economic nutrition is of little matter as compared with the saving of the waste of energy and the menace of disease.

* * * * *

Nature certainly never intended that we should weaken, depress, and distress ourselves in the way that is common to present-day living, as is made evident by the prevalence of discomfort and disease relative to our daily food. Nature’s plan of evolution does not work that way in general, does not retrograde in the progress of the improvement of plants and dumb animals, and certainly does not intend that Man, the First Assistant of Nature in the cultivation of things and in the domestication of the powerful natural forces, should suffer and become degenerate contrary to her general law.

If we are agreed upon the foregoing, let us ask ourselves a few questions.

Without any undue egotism, may it not be possible for a generation of human beings, who have progressed so far in intelligence as to be able to move things by steam, to communicate across the ocean even without wires to guide our messages, and to see clearly through objects that are as dark as night to the unassisted human eye with the aid of an artificial light, to learn the secret of right self-nutrition and practise it in a manner that will not deprive us of the maximum of pleasure which Nature invariably gives as a reward for conformity with her beneficent requirements? May we not assume that beings who have learned to breed and train horses to race with human intelligence, and to run, trot, or pace a mile in less than two minutes, may also train themselves to have the proportional relative speed, endurance, and longevity that has been attained by race horses through man’s care, and to enjoy the pleasure of living that is evident in these favoured animals, mere servitors of man though they be?

If this disparity of man is due to ignorance arising in self-neglect, which is the usual accompaniment of genius, may we not now, at the beginning of the pregnant twentieth century, rest for a moment from discovering, developing, and improving the world outside our personal selves and concentrate our attention for a while on learning to know and care for ourselves? May we not, at least, give “horse sense” attention to such a vital interest?

* * * * *

In the midst of the present confusion which exists among opinions as to the right conduct of life and activity, and the best manner and system of diet to be used to secure health and efficiency, it seems almost a vain appeal to call for concert of action in a matter of common and persistent neglect. Each person, as his own keeper, is careless, and in matters of bodily management no one feels called upon to be his brother’s keeper; but this is merely the lethargy of oversight and consequent ignorance, and this book is published to call attention to the oversight and to attempt to dispel the ignorance.

* * * * *

At the present moment of writing (October, 1903) there are quartered at New Haven, Connecticut, twenty privates of the Hospital Corps of the United States Army and three non-commissioned officers, under the command of Assistant Surgeon, Lieutenant Wallace DeWitt. These men and officers, while they are under regular army discipline and are performing duty in conformity with their oath of enlistment, are yet volunteers. They are from the same corps, if they are not the same men, which furnished volunteers to investigate the causes of yellow fever in Cuba, whose heroism resulted in stamping the fever out of the islands and in that more effectually protecting our coast states from its yearly incursions. These are the same men who generously refused to accept the offered bounty. This latter expression of exalted manhood is evidence of what humanity is whenever there is real need for heroes to serve the general good. They refused to _sell_ themselves as risks for money, but they freely _offered_ themselves as subjects of scientific investigation for the benefit of their fellows and of mankind at large.

* * * * *

The duty that the soldiers are engaged in at Yale has no element of risk, and need not have any feature of monotony or tediousness in it, much less has it the romance of sacrifice, for it deals with an attempt to restore normality and does not consort with disease. But the service being rendered by these guardians of our health, these soldiers of hygiene, is even more important than was the service rendered in stamping out yellow fever, for it deals with an enemy much more subtle, treacherous, common, and deadly than Yellow Jack. Yellow fever calls for a halt and an immediate attempt at cure, and further, for stringent defence to extermination; but indigestion and the American plague, _dyspepsia_, work their evils slowly but surely to cut off our best men and loveliest women in their prime and to rob us of their richest product and of their maturest wisdom.

* * * * *

The investigation at Yale is a link in a chain of effort that has developed in logical sequence and has been planned to effect a cure of the common ignorance and practice relative to right human nutrition in its relation to profitable thinking and doing; and to discourage the personal neglect which has been responsible for the existing ignorance, this book is issued to show what may easily be done and what has been done, so far, in this direction. It is a compilation of important knowledge which has been born of recent scientific research but which is hidden away from common comprehension in scientific publications; and it relates the story of the development of which this book is an exponent. Herein are given the reasons why the government and the most eminent scientists in the line of researches in nutrition are coöperating so earnestly and so unusually in a commonweal inquiry.

* * * * *

About ten years ago, at the critical age of forty-four, the author was fast becoming a physical wreck in the midst of a business, club, and social tempest. Although he was trained as an athlete in his youth and had lived an active and most agreeable life, he had contracted a degree of physical disorder that made him ineligible as an insurance risk. This unexpected disability, with such unmistakable warning, was so much a shock to his hopes of a long life that it led to his making a strong personal effort to save himself. The study was taken up in systematic manner, account of which is too long to relate here; but the eager auto-reformer soon learned that his troubles came from _too much_ of many things, among them too much food and too much needless worry; and realising the danger ahead, he sought a way to cure himself of his disabilities by the help of an economic food supply, as did Luigi Cornaro; but what is even more important, he found a way to enjoy the smaller quantity of food much more than any plethoric luxury can give, and arrived at the method by a route that showed a means of conserving a healthy economy and an increased pleasure of eating, at the same time, in quite a simple and scientific manner, that any one may learn and practise without any ascetic deprivation whatever. Cornaro buried the real clew to his economic and pleasurable success with his body, owing to his vague generality of description of his method. The author is determined not to make the same mistake, and thereby bury _his_ key to a happy and easy life.

* * * * *

The secret of the method is all told in this book and is confirmed herein by both theoretically scientific and scientifically practical authority; but the experiments which are being conducted at Yale by Professor Chittenden, in coöperation with Surgeon-General O’Reilly of the army, of which the _Daily Press_ has given notice, together with experiments which are in progress in many university laboratories in this country and in Europe, are for the purpose of explaining the “reasons for things” by complete scientific reasoning, so that none may doubt the disadvantage and sin of dietic ignorance and carelessness.

The acceptance of the theory and method of the author at the great Battle Creek Sanitarium, after more than a year’s trial, and elsewhere among curative agencies, and their adoption and use as the first requisite of treatment, of which the public have not so generally heard, are indorsements coming from practical, intelligent, and expert sources of experience and judgment, and hence they are of the utmost value and significance.

* * * * *

This introductory chapter is being written after the “clippings” of newspaper comment relative to the presence of the soldiers at Yale have begun to come in. The majority of comments are generous in spirit, but indicate a lack of complete understanding which this “Introduction” is intended to correct.

* * * * *

Some of the comments are couched in ridicule, and express pity for the poor soldiers who are being “misused” as subjects of starvation in an investigation which promises to make starvation a rule in the army. To the writers of such trifling and unfair paragraphs let me, one of the fraternity in an amateurish way, beg consideration of the following.

The campaign that has been started is against a common enemy of mankind, and of the American and English nations in particular. In our successes in agriculture, manufacture, and commerce we have cultivated insidious, luxurious temptations which bring all of us some ill and many of us, or our loved ones, fatal disease and premature death. The advance agent of these enemies of ours is Eating-and-drinking-too-much.

* * * * *

The officers and men of the army and the eminent scientists of our country and those of all nationalities who have entered into the campaign with us, and the great power of the sanitaria joining as practical nurses, demonstrators, and exponents of the reform, are all working for you and for everybody. It is voluntary service and has already cost some of the volunteers much time and patience and also a considerable sum in money.

* * * * *

You, gentlemen of the Press, wielders of the helpful or careless pen, have a conspicuous pulpit and a far-reaching influence. No one can escape you. In the search for the news of the day you are encountered at every turn in your editorials or your paragraphs. In this campaign we need your assistance to make the coöperation between the army and science easy and effective. They are too busy working for you and your best interest to stop to argue to correct your misunderstanding, but the cause will feel the benefit of your assistance.

Encouragement has powerful influence in stimulating effort and also in creating and conserving conditions in which men may “do their best.” What we are trying to learn is, what man _may_ do, under favourable conditions of knowledge and confidence, to relieve his body of the _strain of energy-taxing labour_ in disposing of the waste _which any excess of food imposes_. It is a constructive experiment and not a mere statistical measurement. Appreciation and applause assist; doubt and ridicule obstruct.

The soldiers and physiologists are too busy studying indigestion and possible proteid poisoning and what-not-other causes of intemperance, disease, and suffering to ask you to assist in spreading only serious report and right suggestion relative to the importance and purport of the investigation, but it is my privilege to ask it for the general good.

* * * * *

Just another word of introduction and then will follow some _postintroductory_ coincidences relative to the work in hand, and then an attempt to lay out a ten-page chart of the personal responsibility in the care of the body and the nourishment of the mind by aid of an economic and most satisfactory nutrition, so as to make conservation of energy as easy as possible and life well worth the living. The scientific support from the pens of professional observers is, however, the real meat of the book, for which compiler and reader alike are and should be grateful.

* * * * *

In serving in the humanitarian ranks in a commonweal campaign one should not need to use the concealment of modesty, nor should he fail to speak with all frankness. What are the motives behind all this energy to reform the eating habits of the people? The question has been so often asked that it is better thus publicly answered.

No one concerned in the campaign has any personal monetary interest in any kind of food, prepared or otherwise. The movement began in a suggestion carried by an accidental word given to the author by a friend, an old-time friend in Japan, and a friendship never to be forgotten, as related in the author’s book “Menticulture.” Pursuit of menticulture led further to the discovery that the best mental results could not be accomplished in a body weakened by any indigestion, any mal-assimilation of nutriment, any excess of the waste of indigestion. Then came the quest for the causes of mal-nutrition, which were soon found, by study of the natural sequences and by going behind the hypotheses of text-book authority, to arise in the careless ingestion of food, its neglect in the mouth, and the consequent glut of unassimilable excess within the body, necessitating enormous expense of brain and body energy to get rid of the excess.

When the secret of the potency for good of a rationally economic alimentation was revealed to the author, was confirmed by several colleagues of different ages and both sexes, and was tested by work and endurance measurement, and also by the test time, it became necessary to have given to it the indorsement of highest authority in order to have the information credited. The new rediscovery was a simple matter, something everybody thought they knew all about because it had been under their nose all their life and was one of the commonplaces of every-day living, but for that very reason it failed to receive credence, and the backbone of the doubt was habit--lifelong habit--and this was hard to break even in those who accepted the theory of economic nutrition as a logical conviction. It was also necessary to prove that it was not personal idiosyncrasy that favoured us, its advocates.

It is in pursuit of the latter desideratum that the officers of the army, the scientists, and the great humanitarian health-restoring institutions have entered upon conclusive investigations, each in their own way, to chart out a law of economy that will be generally applicable and which, it is hoped, can be understood by kindergartners and mothers for the benefit of the present and of coming generations.

* * * * *

It was just stated that no one concerned in the inquiry was interested in any food product or in any personally profitable business concern, and mention of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, so widely known as the pioneer in fostering the pure food and prepared-cereal manufacture, may cast a doubt upon the matter in the minds of those who do not know that the Sanitarium organisation, in its every department, is a philanthropic, humanitarian institution. It is the parent and feeder of the American Medical Missionary Cause, which already has established branches in something over sixty localities situated in or near large cities in different parts of the world, chiefly America. By perpetual charter all the profits revert to the spread of the work and the employees serve for a mere pittance, deriving their major compensation from enjoyment of the altruistic work.

* * * * *

The old prejudice against the human race which declared that “everybody had an axe to grind,” that there was “a nigger in every woodpile,” and such like slanders, must be modified in the light of recent altruistic development. Altruism has always been existent and had a great new birth with the beginning of our era, but it was never before so frankly put upon a business basis as it is now, and this is fast being applied to every department of business activity. It is now done, not in the name of any particular creed or cult, or for future reward, but because _it pays_--first, last, and all the time.

* * * * *

In the study and pursuit of menticulture the author has found that working for the common good is as necessary to happiness as working for self, and that the retroactivity and reciprocity of the idea multiplies the profits indefinitely.

The sequence of profitable, altruistic interrelation is stated in the “Explanation” of the chain of the A. B. C. Life Series, of which this book is one of the links.

* * * * *

Aside from those actively engaged in the several investigations to whom reference is often made, the author wishes to express special gratitude to Sir Michael Foster and to Professor Henry Pickering Bowditch of the Board of Scientific Assessors. Unselfish and unremitting in their assistance and encouragement, the author’s work has been made easy since their interest was enlisted.

Sir Michael, as Member of Parliament in England, and as a physiological savant, knows that economic nutrition is the key to England’s welfare, as well as the basic necessity of temperance, morality, health, and efficiency, as is expressed in the two documents from him reproduced in the “Report of a Plan for an International Investigation into the Subject of Human Nutrition” and in his “Note” on the Cambridge examination of the author and Dr. Van Someren at Cambridge University laboratories, given herein.

Professor Bowditch, as a distinguished physiologist, publicist, and especially as the President of the Children’s Aid Society, of Boston, Massachusetts, often mentioned as the model institution of its kind in the world, realises that the effort of the author to secure basic knowledge relative to right nutrition, adaptable to kindergarten teaching and home training during the impressionable period of youth, is of the greatest importance in social reform.

A trial suggestion relative to ways and means of _beginning right_ with _all the children_ and thus insuring a regeneration of the classes most in need of reform, in not longer than two decades, is outlined in the author’s appeal for the waifs of society, entitled “That Last Waif; or Social Quarantine.”

Whenever there is any disposition to slack up in patience or enthusiasm to accomplish the ultimate end aimed at, the picture of the waif in that story is flashed back by memory, and there can be neither forgetfulness, indifference, nor repose until “that last waif” has been given _at least a chance of choosing_ between the right and the wrong, the good and the bad.

POSTINTRODUCTORY

[Just before “going to press” the author has received a letter from his esteemed colleague, Dr. Hubert Higgins, giving the gist of interviews with an eminent European physiologist and with a famous American chemist and dietitian, which so well describes the attitude of the scientific mind towards the problem of human nutrition that the scientific mentor of the writer advises its addition to the book.

By the same post there arrived a letter from Dr. J. H. Kellogg, the life and director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, expressing practical appreciation, the result of demonstration, of what is being done to solve the problem.

Eliminating the personal element and keeping the ultimate object in view, these communications are coincidentally _a propos_ and intimate to our “Introduction”; hence their reproduction here.

Numerous other letters and extracts from communications received by the writer, bearing upon this subject, from the above and other sympathetic friends are reproduced in “The New Glutton or Epicure,” a free and easy companion of this book, intended to appeal to a variety of readers.

When it is known that the proceeds of all the publications of the author are dedicated to the promotion of the objects they advocate, reference to them or advertisement of them cannot be considered inappropriate.—HORACE FLETCHER.]

EXTRACTS FROM DR. HIGGINS' LETTER

PALAZZINA TASSO,
CAMPO S. POLO,
VENEZIA.

October 3, 1903.

DEAR MR. FLETCHER,--A. appears to me to have an exceedingly broad and philosophic grasp of the problem of nutrition.

He recognises that all present data are subject to criticism, and that there are no scientifically accurate data available because

(_a_) Observations are taken over too short a period.

(_b_) They have mainly dealt with one side of the problem,--the output of muscular work.

(_c_) The observations are not sufficiently complete.

He acknowledges that cleavage products from food broken down in the intestines by bacteria are the cause of

(_a_) Inefficiency
(_b_) Diseases
(_c_) Mental derangements.
(See Mott’s work.)

He recognises that the majority of people eat far too much. He puts this in the following way. If a “mediæval devil” had wished to discover the most subtle and most effective way to destroy mankind mentally, morally, and physically, he would have arranged for them to be supplied with tasty, well-cooked foods, wines, etc.; in short, he would have used every means to tempt, confuse, and pervert their appetite. He would also have arranged every possible means to prevent their being in the fresh air and taking exercise. He thinks one has here the picture of modern civilisation.

He talked in a very interesting and instructive manner about the necessity and value of exercise and a muscular body for the maintenance of good health. He has evidently worked at and thought a good deal about this side of the subject.

He regrets that there are not more people who realise the huge importance of understanding the nutrition problem for the sake of the progress of humanity. He would like to join all those who are interested in forming an international society, as far as I understood him.

He is most keen on getting subjects, such as myself, for study over a very long period of time,--two to three years,--as he very justly observed “Muscular output is a very small part of the measure of a man’s efficiency. Mental efficiency, manual dexterity, and other psychological tests are necessary.” He seemed very much interested in my idea of making a large number of curves of daily observations. He said that it appeared to him to offer the best means of ultimately measuring the degree of deviation from the subject’s optimum state of health.

He argues the necessity of getting some scientific definition of health.

* * * * *

The phrase that reduces all these people to contemplative silence is this.

“You acknowledge that the state of knowledge is insufficient to prescribe a diet for any individual that he should take daily; or in other words, that there is very little accurate knowledge of the nutrition problem.”

Reply. “Yes. I do not feel I could prescribe a diet for any one with any degree of confidence.”

“Very well, then. Why should not the body have or acquire the quality that all animals have, in a free, natural state, of knowing what their body wants by appetite and taste?”

This is more or less how you put it to me when I first met you at Cambridge. Its full significance did not dawn on me till much later; till, in short, I commenced the study of my desires at Cambridge.

Now this point of view is the rock on which we stand, and is the cause of H.'s and A.'s interest, and as H. said, is the “most fascinating idea” he ever heard.

It had very much the same effect on A. He was reduced to silence. The more you think of it the more you see there is no answer that could contradict it.

_He then admits that_

(_a_) The food should be finely divided.

(_b_) That it should be thoroughly insalivated.

(_c_) That in all probability most diseases are caused by dietetic error.

(_d_) That we have still to find the optimum health and the optimum diet.

He only kicks at the low proteid. Now I don’t care a “kuss” for the low proteid, as such, or high proteid. Proteid like everything else will be demanded by the appetite when it is wanted.

Our great danger, to my mind, is the tendency so strongly exemplified by some of prescribing diets and quantities and the length of time food should be chewed.[1] Now the very errors we are fighting against are the prescription of methods on insufficient information or knowledge. _You have gone straight back to Nature._ _There is your strength_ in convincing the scientific world, and we must study the problem from that point of view if we are to get any great degree of success.

A. had nothing to say when I told him that I did not hold by either high or low proteid but only by my appetite and taste, developed by ample mouth opportunity to discriminate, which I hoped, in time, to understand more thoroughly than I do now. He told me that he feared that there would be great physical deterioration after a long period of low proteid. I said that I did not believe it would be the case by your method. For instance, right in the midst of a long period of most satisfactory low-proteid supply, I once ate nearly a whole chicken with some ham at Penegal. I could not get saliva for anything else.[2] In short, then, I insisted only on thorough mastication to protect taste and appetite, and had no other theories. I was only concerned in observing the factors determining my taste and appetite. I would be more than contented to leave the question of minimum and maximum quantity of proteid to be settled in the future after normality had been established by practical demonstration.

Yours faithfully,
HUBERT HIGGINS.

EXTRACTS FROM DR. KELLOGG’S LETTER

BATTLE CREEK, MICH.
October 7, 1903.
MR. HORACE FLETCHER.

DEAR FRIEND,--Yours of September 30th just reached my hands and I hasten to reply.

I saw a newspaper note in reference to the soldiers which the government has selected for the dietetic experiments, and also read an interesting article in the _Popular Science Monthly_. You have accomplished a great good thing in enlisting these scientific and military men and interesting them in the investigation of this wonderful reform. The marvellous thing about it is that these busy men of science should have so readily undertaken an investigation which involves so much surrender and self-denial, at least, at the start. I know you are absolutely right. My personal experiences and observations confirm me. In the experiments you mention, which I made in reference to the daily ration for ordinary persons, I simply sought to ascertain, as have others, how much and what kinds of food people are in the habit of using, taking no account of the possible excess or the careless manner in which they eat. The figures I got were sixteen ounces of starch; 1.2 ounces fat, and three ounces proteids,--approximately 2,500 calories. In observation of patients I have seldom found one able to eat this amount. Personally, I habitually eat scarcely half as much. My breakfast to-day was the yolks of two eggs, two or three tablespoonfuls of corn flakes, a moderate-sized potato, and a couple of peaches. At dinner I shall take a little more.

I have been so busy with my patients and the new building, getting things organised, that I have not done as much as I ought to in the way of promoting your splendid reform; but I am going at it now in good earnest. I feel it is one of the greatest things in sight, and it fits right in to all the other things I am trying to do. I feel that I owe you continually a great debt for the efforts you have made and the splendid work you are doing, which will accomplish more for the uplifting of humanity than all that Carnegie and Rockefeller are doing with their millions. What they are doing is mainly to perpetuate old errors, while you are bringing out new truth of basic importance, and a kind Providence has certainly inspired you to do this grand work.

I thank you for all your good thoughts towards us, and assure you the loving encouragement your letters always contain is very much appreciated, and sometimes it gives us a mental uplift just when we need it. The road we are travelling over is not altogether free from thorns. All your suggestions are gratefully received. I remain,

Faithfully yours,

J. H. KELLOGG.

A. B.-Z. PRIMER

EXPLANATION

This is a condensed presentment of a subject of basic importance to everyone, supported by numerous appendices of great scientific weight.

The special object of such brevity and elementary treatment of the subject is:

=1.= To accentuate the facts showing how little we really have to know and do in connection with our sustenance in order to have the NATURAL AUTOMATIC PROCESSES done rightly and healthfully.

=2.= To permit busy persons who will take our dictum as gospel and our advice as sound to learn their necessary share in their own nutrition in the least possible time, leaving the less credulous and more curious to study the appendices at leisure and at will.

=3.= For some ten years it has been the ambition and the aim of the older and non-professional author to embody the fundamental essentials of human responsibility in self-understanding and self-management in not more than ten pages of coarse print that a child could understand and that mothers and teachers might commit to memory and never forget.

This is only a first trial-attempt to fulfil the ambition and the aim; but the appendices show the assembling and concentration of scientific and militant forces which will not allow this subject of primal human interest to remain longer the most neglected of educational departments.

SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS

Will the reader not ask himself the following questions?

=1.= How much do I know about my own nutrition?

=2.= Do I know the particular need and purpose of my last meal and what it is likely to accomplish?

=3.= Considering my body as an engine, would I accept myself as a competent engineer on my own examination and confession?

=4.= Were I an iron and steel automobile, instead of a flesh and blood automobile, which I really am, could I get a license for myself, as a _chauffeur_, to run myself with safety, based upon my knowledge of my own mechanism and the theory and development of my power?

=5.= Were I an owner of valuable live-stock, would I employ a farm-hand or a stable man, even at so low a wage as fifteen dollars a month, who knew as little about the proper feeding of my animals as I know about the proper feeding of myself and my children?

=6.= Should I employ such an ignorant attendant for my live-stock, and catch him worrying them during their feeding, and hurrying them away from their fodder to hitch them up for work, would I not have the man arrested for cruelty to animals? And yet this is what is habitually done to children!

=7.= Do I appreciate how important it is to learn sufficient of the requirements of economic and healthy nutrition to enable me to escape the depressing and debilitating effects of a faulty nutrition.

=8.= How can I religiously “ask a blessing” upon food and then immediately sin by treating it in a manner abhorrent to the natural requirements?

=9.= If “cleanliness is next to godliness” is it respectable for me to slight my proper feeding in a manner that I know may induce putridity of excreta through indigestion and that _may_ produce fatal disease?

=10.= With All Eternity ahead of me, cannot I afford at least 1∕48[3] of my time for careful feeding of my body in a manner known to favour physical health; mental keenness; firmness of character; enjoyable temperance; sexual vigour without morbidity. In fact, general respectability and efficiency?

Having duly reasoned out logical answers to the questions, may they not seem sufficiently important to be remembered and respected as a DIETARY TEN COMMANDMENTS?

A

The Psychology of Nutrition

APPETITE ATTENTION APPRECIATION

APPETITE is the most important factor in digestion (vide Pawlow).

NORMAL APPETITE is indicated by a desire for _some particular_ simple food accompanied by a “watering of the mouth.”

FALSE APPETITE is a general discontent of the body, indefinite of description. It is often expressed by “all gone-ness,” or stomach craving, and calls for _something_, ANYTHING! to smother the discomfort of present or recent indigestion. It is like the thirst which follows a debauch.

IGNORE FALSE APPETITE, and WAIT for a RETURN of NORMAL APPETITE. It will come as soon as body repairs have been effected by natural agencies and more material is required. No one was ever injured by intelligently and calmly waiting for an appetite. No one ever starved to death for lack of appetite. Most human ills come from forcing appetite, anticipating appetite, abuse of appetite in some form.

APPETITE is the most important factor in nutrition. This estimation is based upon evidence given more fully in the various appendices, but the measure of its importance may be briefly stated, as follows:—

_First_

In its normal state, Appetite is a perfect indicator of the bodily need of nutriment and moisture, both as to quantity and as to the chemical elements required at the moment.

_Second_

APPETITE is a creature of the mind and does not attach to a tissue. It can be as easily changed, from abnormal to normal, by suggestion, as can the mind itself, and is not like a solid, the form or habit of which has been set in a mould. Whoever has once experienced a bad oyster and has abhorred oysters ever after will substantiate this claim regarding the caprices of appetite.

_Third_

APPETITE can be easily comprehended and read and the degrees of its satisfaction understood by simple attention and study for a brief period (vide Van Someren).

_Fourth_

ATTENTION is necessary to create APPRECIATION, and appreciation is absolutely necessary to stimulate the secretion and flow of gastric and other digestive juices (vide Pawlow).

_Fifth_

ANGER, or shock of any kind, and WORRY, or any of the pessimistic depressants, stop digestive activity and cause indigestion (vide Cannon).

_Sixth_

MENTICULTURE should begin with its application to selection (through a normalised appetite) of nutriment for the body, and continue to aid digestion by right thinking.

It is very easy to cultivate calm and fortify against surprise, shock, and anger if the nutrition of the body is carefully attended to. The physical and the mental equipments are beautifully reciprocal and necessary to each other in promoting MENTICULTURE.

B

The Mechanical and Chemical Physiology of Nutrition

BUCCAL DIGESTION

THROUGH

MOUTH THOROUGHNESS

Mouth treatment of food, which permits, aids, and includes insalivation (mixing with saliva), and which is both actively digestive in its functions and preparatory to final digestion, is the only _actual mechanical responsibility_ we have in our nutrition; and, in connection with favourable A conditions, insures perfect digestion. It has been so fully and clearly explained in some recent articles, “Observations on Mastication,” by Dr. Harry Campbell, F.R.C.P., physician to the Northwest London Hospital, printed in the “Lancet” of July 11th, 18th, 25th, and August 8th, 1903, that reference to the articles, reprinted herewith, is all that is necessary here.

In giving attention to careful mouth-treatment of soft or liquid foods until they are absorbed by the Swallowing Impulse the best health and economic results are obtained. It should, at least, be tried.

This will not be found to be a tedious operation after a little practice, when the habit of attention and care has been formed. On the contrary, a new appreciation and enjoyment of taste will be acquired, the delight of which has to be experienced to be understood.

Some hints on learning how to _read_ the appetite, _command_ the attention, and _masticate_ and _swallow_ food material _properly_ follow.

METHOD

_First; Last; and All the Time_

Be sure that you are really hungry and are not pampering False Appetite. If true appetite that will relish plain bread alone is not present, wait for it. Especially beware of the early-morning habit-craving. Wait for an _earned_ appetite, if you have to wait till noon. Then: “Chew,” “Masticate,” “Munch,” “Bite,” “Taste” everything you take in your mouth (except water, _which has no taste_), until it is not only thoroughly liquefied and made neutral or alkaline by saliva, but until the reduced substance all settles back in the (glosso-epiglottidean) folds at the back of the mouth and excites the Swallowing Impulse into a strong inclination to swallow. Then swallow what has collected and has excited the impulse, and continue to chew _at_ the remainder, liquid though it be, until the last morsel disappears in response to the Swallowing Impulse. Never forcibly swallow anything that the instincts connected with the mouth show any disposition to reject. It is safer to get rid of it beforehand than to risk putting it into the stomach.

Sip and taste milk and all liquids that have taste as the wine-tasters do. They never drink wine and yet they get all the enjoyment there is in it and waste none. In a very short time sipping and tasting liquids and masticating and tasting solid food for “all they are worth” will become an agreeable and profitable fixed habit.

WHETHER WE “EAT TO LIVE OR LIVE TO EAT,” WHY NOT DO AS ABOVE?

Z

The True Chemical End-Point of Digestion

THE DIGESTION-ASH WHAT IT SHOULD BE LIKE WHEN IT IS NORMAL

_First_

In adults; or, in children after the eruption of teeth and the ingestion of solid food: The non-liquid and non-gaseous waste of the human body, which, in its normal state, is not offensive, should be very small, in quantity, should be pillular in form, either separate or massed together; should have no odour when released, should take on no odour on standing, should be entirely aseptic (non-poisonous); should drop freely from the exit, leaving nothing behind to wash or wipe away. It _may_ not be collected in the intestines of full-grown and elderly persons, when normal, as above, in sufficient quantity to require or necessitate emptying oftener than from twice a week to once in two weeks; according to age, activity, etc.; and should neither invite nor justify the description “it is not that which goeth into a man that defileth him but that which cometh out.”

_Second_

Economic Digestion-Ash (solid _excreta_), as a daily average for an adult of 140 lbs. (10 stone; 63.5 kilos), including moisture, when released, should not weigh more than two ounces (56.70 grams). An average of less than one half this amount of waste has been secured in test experiments.

_Third_

The true test of healthy Z is absence of odour and completeness, ease and cleanliness of delivery. Frequency or otherwise, does not so much matter. Quantity too, is not so important; but with foul odour there is disturbance, strain and danger.

The normal man is a cleanly being with all excreta inoffensive; and by these tokens he may be his own private judge.

Why is it that barn-yards are tolerable to the human senses while open _dépôts_ of human excreta are fever-breeding nuisances and intolerable to beasts and humans alike?

This curse of putrid excreta caused more deaths from enteric fever during the Boer War in South Africa than all other causes. It is equally a menace to health and even to life while being formed and carried in the body.

_Fourth_

Offensive excreta are quite certain evidence of neglect of the self-controllable parts of our own nutrition. They are the tell-tale condemnation of ignorance or carelessness. Each person should learn to read the true bulletins of his health conditions in his waste-products of digestion.

Z

is the form the body _must_ assume to render emptying of the digestion-ash natural and easy. Man was built to squat on his heels in defecating, and sitting erect on a modern seat is like trying to force a semi-solid through a kinked hose. HEALTHY HUMAN EXCRETA ARE NO MORE OFFENSIVE THAN MOIST CLAY AND HAVE NO MORE ODOUR THAN A HOT BISCUIT.

A. B.-Z. FIGURE

TO ILLUSTRATE THE “DIVISION OF LABOUR”

_First._ A

Psychic Environment } This
Mental State } involves:

APPETITE (to select for) }
ATTENTION (to prepare for) } DIGESTION
APPRECIATION (to assist in) }

(Absolutely necessary to secure secretion and flow of the digestive juices: Vide Pawlow and Cannon.)

_Second._ B

BUCCAL-DIGESTION } This
MOUTH-TREATMENT } involves:

MECHANICAL (teeth) } THOROUGHNESS
CHEMICAL (salival) }

(Absolutely necessary to secure complete digestion and avoid the putridity incident to bacterial decomposition: Vide Campbell and Van Someren.)

INTERMEDIATE

The twenty-three letters between “=B=” and “=Z=” represent but an inadequate proportion for the spelling of the enormous share Nature assumes in our welfare, marvellously performing her forty-seven forty-eighths share in the secret laboratory of the alimentary canal.

_Third._ Z

The true chemical end-point of digestion, by which each self-respecter may know how well he has respected his “A” and his “B,” and how faithfully he has performed his one forty-eighth share in the promotion of his own most fundamental interest.