In six months this boy led his grade; the next year he made up one of the grades missed, and the fourth year was up with his class, and his mother reported a complete change in his condition and disposition; also his teachers never again complained of his lack of progress or disobedience to rules.

This boy reminded the writer of the white rats who were fed deficiently--irritable, suspicious, resentful, watchful, stubborn and unapproachable in everything, all because he was not as well as he should have been.

A patient had two daughters, one twelve and the other fifteen years of age, the elder fat, lazy, behind with her school work, utterly refusing to join in the sports of the school, and always slow to bed and to get up.

Heavy feeder, of the wrong foods, which she refused to change, and which were plainly causing her condition.

The teeth were still in good condition, but the arch of the mouth inclined to be too high and the teeth somewhat crowded.

She was interested in different feeding habits because she was feeling bad at the time and was persuaded to change her habits on this account.

From this one experience she realised a great uplift in feelings, became an enthusiastic dieter, and in one year led her grade in high school, and was the most proficient student in several sports; all because she felt better.

No one knows the feelings of another, but one can read the physical signs that will predispose to wrong feelings and wrong thinking, and these may safely be taken as evidence of a deficiency that is correctible and that may be ruining the life.

It means nothing that the subject may be large and well-formed, for deficiencies may have occurred after the frame was fully developed, so these physical evidences do not apply so easily after growth is fully attained, but one will carry in the mouth evidences of deficiency that can be read at any age, such as gingivitis, or inflamed gums, decayed teeth, pyorrhoea, a tongue deeply fissured or heavily coated or bearing the indentations of the teeth on the margins. All these evidences indicate a system well saturated with acids, from deficiencies of the normal alkalin salts, and such a body is far below the normal, maybe far enough to impair greatly the mind or the disposition or to cripple any effort to think normally.

The teeth and mouth development of the habitual criminal is substandard, and indicates that deficiencies have existed long and progressed far, and should be examined in every case with a view to correction of the evident aberrations of nutrition.

When the young man or woman, the boy or the girl, is first convicted of a crime, when the first jail sentence is pronounced, it is generally regarded by the mass of society that here is the beginning of a life of crime, for it is so hard to get back that few have the hardihood to attempt it, and crime then seems to be the elected course.

If these cases were taken at such a time and subjected to thorough examination, with particular attention to the evidences of acidosis or deficiency, a golden opportunity would present itself to make this the last offense against society by starting a course of regenerative diet that would surely make good the deficiencies within a very few months, and open up a new world of enjoyment and good feeling for one that might otherwise drift from bad to worse, as is generally the rule.

Too much attention has in the past been directed to spiritual instruction with nothing done for the motivating cause of crime, the physical state.

It is hard to argue one suffering bodily discomfort into a better spiritual state; rather first relieve the physical handicaps and then the spiritual will easily take care of itself.

Morality for morality's sake is a hard road, and so much depends on the state of the feelings, and these so largely on the physical state, that it is little wonder that so few rescues from a life of criminality are recorded, even considering the army of rescue workers that is giving its very self-sacrificing life to this work.

One must have a strong incentive to work the change in desire that must come in leaving behind a life of crime and adopting one of morality, but such incentive will supply itself when a normal body supports the mind.

When one is as vital as one should be and can be, all the world looks good, suspicion is gone, evil desires seem to have no place in one's thinking, and it becomes easy to be good.

It is not from such states that crime develops, and, if the truth were known, the habitual criminal is more often to be pitied than blamed for transgressions against a society that he has come to regard as his enemy.

Here is a field truly almost untouched, because previous efforts along this line have not included the later findings of science in the matter of nutrition; and what more basic problem can society have than the eradication of criminal tendencies?

The full cooperation of the State would have to be secured, in order to have a perfectly free hand and sufficient time to make such tests conclusive, and if there were any way to secure the interest of such an impersonal thing as the State it should be done, for surely here is a field that deserves a very thorough cultivation.

Too often the criminal is such from mere impulse or accident, and even such will feel afterward the hopelessness of an attempted come-back; yet many of these do become, after a term in prison, not only useful citizens, but trusted employees or officials, and convince any one that they are not habitually inclined to crime, but have been the victims of circumstances over which they did not believe they had complete control.

The criminal is a sick man, and this may be accepted broadly as a fact, so he should be treated as a sick man first, and given in this way a chance to reform, after which he might be termed a chronic enemy of society and banished or confined where he can do no further harm; but surely, if he is a sick man, he should first of all have a chance to get well, which would in all probability mean a moral reform, as his disagreeable physical promptings subsided.