Topics

Mr. Fletcher's discovery and his quest for scientific endorsement.

The test of his claims at Cambridge.

Opinions of Sir Michael Foster and Dr. Hubert Higgins.

Observation of the system at Yale. Dr. Anderson's report.

Professor Chittenden's experiments on professional men, soldiers, athletes and dogs.

Professor Fisher's experiments upon students and upon meat-eaters and vegetarians.

Summary of the evidence.

LIKE many another discovery of the highest value to science, the principles of the new conception of dietetics set forth in this book were hit upon by accident and applied in everyday life before they were worked out in theory; and, like many another great discovery, they had to bear the brunt of popular ridicule before they were stamped with the seal of scientific recognition.

Only a few years ago the mention of the word "Fletcherism" was enough to provoke a laugh. A mere American business man, without any scientific authority whatever, was declaring from the housetops that he had stumbled upon a great truth in regard to human nutrition that the authorities on dietetics had overlooked. His contention was based on the fact that by chewing both his solid and liquid food until, literally, there was nothing left of it, he had cured himself of a complication of diseases and made himself eligible for life insurance, although only a short time before he had been rejected as an unsafe risk.

He asserted that the practice of thorough mastication had revealed to him that one-half the quantities of food consumed by the average man was more than enough to meet all true bodily needs; and that when the faculty of taste was given a chance to pass on everything taken into the mouth, the appetite was not only satisfied with much smaller quantities, but that it indicated a preference for vegetable rather than animal food and tended to reject alcoholic liquors, tea, coffee, and most condiments.

Although a member of some of the most famous clubs in the country and a social favorite in San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and generally throughout America, Mr. Fletcher suddenly found himself an object of ridicule. He and his chewing-cult were made the subjects for endless humorous newspaper paragraphs. He was cartooned and lampooned from one end of the country to the other. Some of his friends, shocked and offended at seeing a man they knew rapidly becoming a national joke, actually cut his acquaintance.

Nothing daunted, however, Mr. Fletcher went serenely on his way, talking his discovery whenever and wherever he could get anyone to listen, and finally hurling defiance in the faces of his critics by writing a pamphlet on the subject, which is now incorporated in his book, "The New Glutton or Epicure."1 His method of eating as set forth in this volume may be briefly summarized as follows:

Eat only when there is a vigorous appetite, expressed, not in a gnawing of the stomach - never pay any attention to that - but in a watering of the mouth. If there is no appetite, wait - even if you have to omit a few meals.

1 Fletcher: "The New Glutton or Epicure."

Never eat when you are hurried. If you haven't time to give full attention to the taste of a meal, don't eat until you can get time.

Never eat when you are worried, angry, exhausted or unhappy. It is better to go without food for a week than to eat when the negative emotions have you in their grip-Masticate all food, liquid as well as solid, until it is sucked down into the throat by an involuntary swallowing impulse, giving attention, not to the mechanical movements of chewing, but to the sensations of taste provoked thereby.

Remove from the mouth the tasteless residue. It can be done without observation, and it is better to risk criticism than to make a waste basket of the stomach.

The result of this practice of eating, Mr. Fletcher declared, was a utilization of food so complete as practically to do away with the decomposing waste products of the body and to leave nothing to the organs of excretion but an inoffensive deposit of cellulose and other dry, unabsorbable material.

The first recognition of his theory which Mr. Fletcher received from the scientific world came from a brief review of this book in the London Lancet, in which the author, Dr. Joseph Blumfield, intimated that Mr. Fletcher had apparently stumbled upon some physiological truths that had been overlooked by the experts and that might be well worth their while to look into.

This gave Mr. Fletcher a new idea. It was to get the endorsement of science for his discovery - and he started out seeking for authorities forthwith.

Dr. Ernest Van Someren, an English physician, was the first member of the medical profession whom he succeeded in persuading to test his claims for the practice of what he called "physiologic mastication." Dr. Van Someren, who had long been a sufferer from a case of gout which had refused to yield to the treatment of a London specialist, adopted Mr. Fletcher's plan of prolonging the mouth treatment of food, both liquid and solid, until its taste had been extracted and it was sucked down into the throat by the "involuntary swallowing impulse," and, in the course of a few weeks, his symptoms began to disappear.

His conversion was complete. He initiated a series of experiments upon his own account and set forth the results in a paper which he presented first to the British Medical Society, and later, more elaborately, before the International Congress of Physiologists at Turin, Italy, in 1901.2

The paper created a sensation among the physiologists, and brought Mr. Fletcher and Dr. Van Someren an invitation from Sir Michael Foster to visit Cambridge University in England and submit their theory to scientific tests at the hands of Dr. F. Gow-land Hopkins and the other physiological experts in the Cambridge laboratories.

These experiments brought the subject definitely and permanently before the scientific world. Dr. Hubert Higgins, demonstrator of anatomy at the University, after trying the system recommended by Mr. Fletcher and Dr. Van Someren upon himself, and thereby reducing his weight from two hundred and eighty-two to one hundred and ninety-six pounds, became so enthusiastic that he wrote a book on the subject to prove, on grounds of pure science, that the practice of "physiologic mastication" would contribute largely to the complete regeneration of the human race.3 Sir Michael Foster, permanent honorary president of the International Congress of Physiologists, published a "Note" in which he declared that the observations upon Mr. Fletcher and Dr. Van Someren established beyond all question that a full and careful study of their contention was urgently called for.

2 For this paper see, " The A. B. - Z. of Our Own Nutrition," pp. 37-46.