On no account, however, should any marked reduction of food be made suddenly. The best plan is not to change the dietary at the start at all, but merely to begin the practice of mastication - giving attention to the taste of the food and not to the jaw movements - and let appetite be the guide.

It will be found much easier to resist the old impulse to hurry down masses of un-tasted food if only small portions are placed on the table and served on the plate. With only a small amount of food before him, a man will make the most of it, just as a child will make a small piece of candy last as long as a big piece if he knows that the small piece is all that he is going to get: whereas, if the man is given a large portion, his tendency is to bolt it down without submitting it to the discriminations of taste, just as a child would bolt down candy as long as he knows there is more coming.

A very few weeks of complete mastication will lead, however, to an automatic reduction of the diet to true physiologic needs, and also to a great simplification of tastes. [Under the old way of eating the tendency is towards number and variety of complex, highly flavored foods; the practice of analytical tasting leads to a preference for one or two dishes of simple and delicate flavor uncomplicated by sauces and condiments. The experience of almost everyone who has adopted the new plan is that the taste for stimulating foods of every character gradually disappears. No one need try to give up meat, condiments, tea, coffee, alcohol and tobacco, because if he continues to masticate conscientiously for several months, he will have no desire to indulge in them to any harmful extent.

The man who has developed the delicate instincts of taste and appetite that Mr. Fletcher has shown to be latent in every human being can restrict his diet to exact physiological requirements without imposing upon himself anything like self-denial. He no longer feels any temptation to indulge in the pernicious practice of eating to kill time, because he not only has no desire to eat except when there is a physiological demand for food, but he actually cannot make himself eat. When, however, in answer to the call of genuine appetite, he does sit down to his meal, he enjoys his food as he never did before.

The adoption of the new system is extremely likely to be followed by a sudden and a very considerable loss of weight. This should not, however, be cause for alarm to anyone. The latest discoveries of science have proved conclusively that we know nothing whatever in regard to the relation of a man's weight to the state of his health. The tables prepared by life insurance companies purporting to give the number of pounds that a man should weigh in proportion to his height and age are mere guesses based on their observation of the fact that healthy men of given heights and ages tend to tip the scales at the same point. This proves that these men have these weights, not that they should have them. Scientific authorities do not presume to say how many pounds a man needs to carry to be in perfect health, because they do not know. Experience tends to prove, however, that the old idea that fat people are the healthiest, is a fallacy, and that, as a matter of fact, it is the thin, wiry people who are likely to live longest and enjoy the best health.

The experience of most of us is, probably, that the best health we have ever enjoyed was in the

"spindling" period of our youth, when our extreme leanness often made us a butt for the humorous remarks of our friends.

Professor Chittenden says that obesity is a condition which is distinctly undesirable and may prove decidedly injurious. "Undue accumulation of fat," he says, "is not only a mechanical obstacle to the proper activity of the body as a whole, but it interferes with the freedom of movement of such muscular organs as the heart and stomach, thereby interposing obstacles to the normal action of these structures. Further, whenever undue fat formation is going on in the body, there is the ever present danger that the lifeless fat may replace the living protoplasm of the tissue cells and so give rise to a condition known as 'fatty degeneration'"22

"Let any actuary of life insurance," says Dr. Edward Curtis, "be asked his experience with heavyweight risks, where the waist measures more than the chest, and the long-drawn face of the business man, at memory of lost dollars, will make answer without need of words. Then let it be noted the physique of the blessed ones that attain to green old age, and, in nine cases out of ten, spry old boys - no disparagement, but all honor in the phrase - will be found to be modelled after the type of octogenarian Bryant or nonogenarian Bancroft - the white-faced, wiry and spare, as contrasted with the red-faced, the pursy, and the stout. It is true, as has already been mentioned, that in old age much of an adventitious obesity is absorbed and disappears, but the Bryant-Bancroft type is that of a subject who never has been fat at all. And just such is pre-eminently the type that rides easily past the fourscore mark, reins well in hand, and good for many another lap in the race of life." 23

22 Chittenden: "Nutrition of Man," p. 270.

"Thorough repair of an impaired body may not be effected immediately," says Mr. Fletcher, "although wonderful results - almost miraculous - have been obtained in three months; but a week's faithful and attentive study of the possibilities of Epicureanism, with right alimentation as its basic requirement, in adding to the comfort and enjoyment of life, will result in right eating being made physiologically and religiously habitual, and will give a backbone of Epicurean character that will not easily succumb to gluttonous impetuosity."24

23 Dr. Edward Curtis: "Nature and Health," p. 70. Henry Holt & Co., New York.

"The result, in all cases of my observation, has been an immediate response of naturally increased energy; approach of weight toward the normal, whether the subject was overweight or underweight; a great falling off of the waste to be discharged by the avenue of the lower intestines and also through the kidneys; relief of bleeding hemorrhoids and catarrh; emancipation from headaches; clearing of the tongue of yellow deposit; and return of the energy for work which all men and women should have, and which finds expression in healthy children in the form of great energy for play." 25

24 Fletcher: "New Glutton or Epicure," p. 131.

25 Fletcher: " New Glutton or Epicure," pp. 174-175.