According to Mr. Fletcher's theories, if a man follows this practice - not with rigid conscientiousness, but with zest and enjoyment - he need never go to a doctor to find out what is "good for him" to eat. Anything that tastes good is good. If he pays attention to the physical sensations in his mouth and retains every morsel of food as long as it continues to minister to these sensations, he can never eat anything that is bad for him, never overeat and, if he treats liquids in the same way, he can never overdrink.

In fact, Mr. Fletcher contends that in time he will develop in his throat a contrivance that will throw back into his mouth anything he attempts to swallow that has not first been made perfectly acceptable to the body by thorough mastication. Mr. Fletcher has given to this contrivance the picturesque and suggestive name of "Nature's Food Filter." Dr. Van Someren describes its workings as follows:

"Food, as it is masticated, slowly passes to the back of the mouth, and collects in the glosso-epiglottidean folds, where it remains in contact with the mucous membrane containing the sensory end-organs of taste. If it be properly reduced by the saliva it is allowed to pass the faucet - a truly involuntary act of deglutition occurring. Let the food, however, be too rapidly passed back to these folds, i. e., before complete reduction takes place, and the reflex muscular movement above referred to occurs . . . The late contents of the glosso-epiglottidean folds are returned to the front of the mouth for further reduction by the saliva preparatory to deglutition." 6

"The Food Filter, when rightly performing its protective function, is impervious to anything except pure water at the right temperature for admission to the stomach and to nutriment which has been properly dissolved and chemically converted by salivation (mixture with saliva) into a substance suitable for further digestion."7

The tasteless residue that is rejected by the Food Filter is invariably composed of matter that is unprofitable if not actually injurious to the body, and should therefore, be rejected. To the objection that it is impossible to remove this residue from the mouth without violating the canons of good form, Mr. Fletcher replies:

"Do you not remove cherry pits, grape skins, the shell of lobster, bone, etc,, when you encounter them? Then why not remove the fibrous matter found in tough, lean meat, the woody fibre of vegetables, or anything rejected by instinctive desire to discard it after taste has been exhausted, and which is a protection provided by beneficent Nature? ... If fibre is found in the food, it can be put upon the fork in the same manner that a cherry pit is usually handled and transferred to the plate without observation.

6 Fletcher: "A. B. - Z. of Our Own Nutrition," pp. 32-33.

7 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 110-111.

"There is nothing more pronounced than . . . the impulsive desire to spit out of the mouth anything that seems unprofitable to the senses.

"Muscles have been provided for this purpose that are more facile than those of an elephant's proboscis ... If you acquire the habit of practicing only involuntary swallowing in eating you will find that these muscles are very discriminating, and will instinctively assist in the rejection of unprofitable matter,

"Their sense of touch will soon discriminate against unprofitable food even when the sense of taste is fooled by some alluring sauce or condiment."8

"When food is filtered into the body after having become liquefied and made alkaline, or at least neutral, by saliva," continues Mr. Fletcher, "the appetite is given a chance to measure the need of the body and to discriminate against excess. As soon as the point of complete saturation of any one deficiency is reached, the appetite is cut off, as short as possible to imagine, with no indication of stomach fullness.

"The appetite satisfied by the infiltering process is a sweetly appeased appetite, calm, rested, contented, normal. There is no danger from the flooding of intemperance, for there is not even toleration of excess either of more food, or more drink, and this contented appetite will remain in the condition of contentment until another need has really been earned by evaporation or destructive katabolism." 9

8 Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 117-193.

"The normal sensitiveness of taste can be recovered," he declares, " if already lost, in the course of a week, or two weeks at most, by means of the stimulating and regenerating influence of natural body repair, if the method of taste and appetite cultivation recommended in this book is followed." 10

As Professor Irving Fisher has said, " It is fortunate for the ordinary man that the taste instinct can be so easily revived, for it would be out of his power to prescribe for himself each day the exact quantity of food necessary for that day's work - the proper proportions of proteid, fat, starch and sugar, and the amounts needed of the fifteen odd mineral salts, to say nothing of acids and enzymes, for each of which only one definite amount is ideally correct.

9 Fletcher: "A. B. - Z. of Our Own Nutrition," p. 95, 10 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," p. 1$3,

11 Professor Irving Fisher: The Independent, New York, August, 1907.