"When the body will tolerate spirits tasted into it - not poured into it - at all," says Mr. Fletcher, " which is not often when the nutrition is normal (only in damp or cold weather, as a general thing and then, in the case of the writer, only at rare intervals, say two or three times a year), the spirit will mix quickly with the saliva and become neutralized sufficiently to excite the swallowing impulse. Continue sipping the spirit for a time and you will note that there comes a point where the saliva and the spirit do not mix, do not neutralize; the mouth becomes unduly full of liquid without any relaxation or invitation of the swallowing impulse, and the really instinctive inclination will be to spit it out. It is a clear indication that the body toleration has been fully taxed; there is no longer any bodily need for alcohol - in fact, there is no longer natural toleration - and the secretion sent down into the mouth is evidently mucous for a washing-out process, and is not alkaline saliva for assisting in a utilization function.

"It will be difficult to convince the advocate of total abstinence that any whiskey can be taken in a seemingly harmless form, but it is true that thorough insalivation of beer, wine or spirits, until disappearance by involuntary swallowing, robs them of their power to intoxicate, partly because appetite will tolerate but little.

"As a matter of fact, whiskey taken in this analytical way is a sure means of breaking up desire for it, and is an excellent protection in drinking as well as in eating. Many of our test subjects have been steady and some heavy drinkers, but persistent attention to Buccal-Thoroughness has cured all of them of any desire for alcohol, and in time surely leads to complete intolerance of it." 19

There has been a good deal of controversy among those who follow Mr. Fletcher's practice as to whether conversation at meals is likely to interfere with the process of mastication. Mr. Fletcher himself declares that it does not. He is a generous entertainer and is extremely fond of having his friends with him at table.

"It is true," says Mr. Fletcher, "that one cannot converse freely with large morsels of food in the mouth. It is also true that it is nothing less than a gluttonous custom to greedily take a big mouthful of food, and, if accosted with a question, to bolt it in order to answer.

19 Fletcher: "A. B. - Z. of Our Own Nutrition," pp. 93-94; "New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 128-129.

"It will be found easy to carry on conversation without disagreeable interruptions and yet follow Nature's demands in properly masticating food by taking small morsels into the mouth. It will be found also to add to the real pleasure of eating, and eventually will become a habit by choice."20

On the other side, Dr. Daniel S. Sager says: "Despite the commonly accepted idea, conversation is apt to interfere seriously with the proper mastication of food and to diminish the pleasure of eating, which should be all-absorbing for the time. The Hindu sages of antiquity considered eating a kind of sacrament to be engaged in abstemiously and silently. The Pythagorean sect ate in profound silence. Shakers never speak at the table, except in receiving or in passing food. At all events, whether the meal is eaten with merry conversation or with Quaker-like silence, the essential thing is complete mastication of the food. Throughout, one should be intent upon the pleasure of eating and the gratification of the sense of taste. ... If one would enjoy food to its fullest possible extent, it is accomplished to perfection by a concentration of the mind upon the tip and sides of the tongue, and by thinking and feeling how extraordinarily good the food tastes." 21

20 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," p. 119.

To most people "mirth and merry company" at table are too valuable as aids to digestion to be lightly banished; and if, as Mr. Fletcher says, the food is taken in small mouthfuls, there seems to be no reason why they should not indulge their desires in this respect as much as they wish.

The adoption of Mr. Fletcher's system results immediately and invariably in cer-tain marked changes in the dietary habits. If a man conscientiously "waits for an appetite," he will find that it registers a demand for food not more than twice a day. As an ordinarily good digestive apparatus cannot dispose of an average meal in less than six hours, and as the digestive apparatus should be permitted a certain amount of rest, it would seem that there was every reason why the prompting of the appetite should be followed. Crato, one of the physicians of antiquity, said, "Eat but twice a day and put seven hours betwixt dinner and supper;" and since his time the wisest physicians of all periods have been pleading with their patients not to send food into their stomachs until the previous meal had been disposed of.

21 Sager: "Art of Living in Good Health," pp. 94-95.

In most cases, the meal most easily eliminated is breakfast. In the early morning when the body has been lying inert for several hours, with the utilization of heat and energy and the breaking down of tissue reduced to a minimum, there can be no genuine need for food. The common declaration of the average man that he has to have a square meal as soon as he gets up " to work on "is not based on physiological principles. It is obvious that no man Works on the food that is in his stomach. Food in the stomach, or in any other part of the digestive tract, takes energy rather than gives it. Food becomes available only when it has been digested and assimilated.

There is, therefore, no doubt that the heavy American breakfast is a most unwholesome institution. If any food is to be taken at all in the morning it should be limited to the Continental breakfast of rolls and coffee, or something equally light. Mr. Fletcher, himself, has for years made it his custom not to eat at all until he has finished his day's work. Many instances might be given of great men who have followed this plan because personal experiment had shown that the brain is clearest when the stomach is empty.