The ancient Roman proverb, "a full stomach does not like to think," may be expanded by adding, "nor to plough." Leisure time for digestion is important. Dr. Oswald well says: "Every hour you steal from digestion is reclaimed by indigestion."

As a mere matter of habit, the mind will stray to the dining room when the wonted meal-time comes around even if genuine hunger does not return with that hour, but if the hour is permitted to slip by without eating the matter is soon forgotten and the supposed desire for food ceases.

The choice of fixed hours for eating is of much less importance than to never eat till you have leisure to digest. We cannot digest and assimilate our food while the functional energies of our system are engaged in other duties. After a hearty meal animals retire to a quiet hiding place and the "after-dinner laziness," which follows a heavy meal is simply nature's admonition to us to follow their example and rest also. The idea that after-dinner exercise or after-dinner speeches promote digestion is a pernicious fallacy.

Normal digestion requires that almost the entire attention of the system be given to the work. Blood is rushed to the digestive organs in large quantities. There is a dilatation of the blood vessels in these organs to accommodate the extra supply of blood. There must be a coetaneous constriction of the blood vessels in other parts of the body in order to force the blood into the digestive organs and to compensate for their own loss of blood.

The functions of digestion cannot be performed without a large supply of blood and nervous energy. The period of comparative lassitude, which follows a hearty meal, is proof that this supply of blood and energy is at the expense of the rest of the organism.

Man is so constituted that he can do well, only one thing at a time. A hearty meal makes him stupid because all of his available energy is employed in the effort to digest such a load. Eating is a business in itself. It should be divorced from all other mental and physical activity. No meal should ever be eaten until after the body has had sufficient mental and physical rest to gain "physiologic poise" and readiness for digestion.

Dr. Cannon tells us that in extreme fatigue, the rhythmic contractions of the stomach fail to occur either in animals or in man. Being "too tired to eat" is a commonly observed fact and the laboratory has shown that this absence of the sensation of hunger, with, usually, a distaste for food, is co-existent with an absence of the hunger contractions of the stomach. This is the physiological basis for our rule to rest before eating.

In an article on "Gastric Juice and Prevention of Enteric Fever and Cholera," published in the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, Feb. 1916, Major Reginald F. Austin presented evidence to show that both officers and enlisted men rendered themselves liable to develop dysentery, cholera and enteric fever by eating when they were fatigued and had no appetite. Hearty eating when one is very tired from either mental or physical work is likely to be followed by indigestion, malaise and incapacity for work, due to a deficiency of active gastric juice under these conditions. Rest and especially sleep, is more important, under such circumstances, than food. After relaxation and rest have been had one may eat.

No food should ever be eaten immediately before or after bathing. No food should be eaten until one is fully rested from fatigue or exercise whether mental or physical. No food should be taken during or immediately preceding work, vigorous exercise or study.