AN
ENGLISH PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON, PRACTISING
IN VENICE, ITALY
"My dear Mr. Fletcher:
"It would be almost àpropos to send
you, as an endorsement of your principles,
the dictum of the ragged and dirty
tramp in the advertisement of Pear's
soap. I would have to amend it slightly
and say: 'I used your {principlessoap} three years
ago; since when I have used no other.'
I say 'almost àpropos' advisedly, for,
while the soap claims to keep the outer
man clean, the practice of your principles
justly claims to keep the inner man
sweet and clean, so lessening the need
to cleanse the outer man!
"A well-known English surgeon (I
think Sir Wm. Mitchell Banks) recommends
physicians and surgeons to take
a leaf from the book of patent-medicine
vendors, and make their patients testify
to their successful treatment. I will
take the hint and give you, as my
'doctor,' a testimonial of how personally
I am benefited by your advice.
"Three years ago, when I first met
you, though under thirty years of age,
and myself a practising physician and
surgeon, I was suffering from gout,
and had been under the régime of a
London specialist for the treatment of
that malady. Though vigorously adhering
to the prescribed diet, I suffered
from time to time. My symptoms were
typical—paroxysmal pain in my right
great toe and in the last joints of both
little fingers, the right one being tumefied
with the well-known 'node.' From
time to time, generally once a month, I
suffered from incapacitating headaches.
Frequent colds, boils on the neck and
face, chronic eczema of the toes, and
frequent acid dyspepsia were other
and painful signs that the life I was
leading was not a healthy one. Yet I
was accounted a healthy person by my
friends, and was, withal, athletic. I
fenced an hour daily, took calisthenic
exercises every morning, forcing myself
to do them, and I rowed when I obtained
leisure to do so. In spite of this exercise
and an inherent love of fresh air,
which kept all the windows of my house
open throughout the year, I suffered as
above. Worse still, I was losing interest
in life and in my work.
"In one or two conversations you
laid down your simple principles of
economic nutrition. You told me that
my food ought to be masticated thoroughly,
until taste was eliminated, and
that (my) liquid nourishment, if taken,
ought to be similarly treated. You also
told me that, taking food in this way, I
might, without fear of consequences,
give free rein to my appetite. To shorten
my story, I'll say that in three months
after the practice of these principles my
symptoms had disappeared. Not only
had my interest in my life and work returned,
but my whole point of view had
changed, and I found a pleasure in both
living and working that was a constant
surprise to me. For this, my dear Mr.
Fletcher, I can never repay you. My
only desire has been and is, to try and
do for others in my practice what you
did for me.
"Now I have since that time had
occasional colds, headaches, and gouty
pains; but, whereas formerly I could not
explain their causes, I can now invariably
trace them to carelessness in the
buccal digestion of my food, and can
soon shake them off. So much for my
testimonial. Now for other matters.
"I do not know what may be the extent
of the claims you are advancing in
regard to the benefits accruing from the
practice of your principles. If you, as
you in justice may, claim even the widest
benefits as surely following the practice
of these principles, many will relegate
these claims to the limbo where all such
'panaceas' are soon forgotten. They
will err greatly if they do so. The seemingly
simple procedure of insalivating
one's food most carefully is not calculated
to impress people with the fact
that great permanent benefit follows.
The subtlety of the changes that occur
is due to the greatly increased action of
a vital process, i. e., of the admixture with
the food-stuffs of saliva, in such quantities
as to alter the chemical reaction of
the initial stage of digestion. This initial
change causes a consequent change
of all the processes following it, and a
change also in the final products of the
entire process of digestion; the greatest
change being, perhaps, the elimination
of last-resort digestion by the
intestinal flora (digestion by decomposition
caused by bacteria), and consequent
elimination from the body, of the toxins
they produce. The life of an organism
has been defined as 'the sum of all
those inter-actions which take place between
the various cells constituting the
organism and their several environments.'
(Harry Campbell.) The final
products of digestion are absorbed into
the blood stream, and go to form part
of the 'several environments' of the
cells. The individual cell, the various
groups of specialised cells, such as the
brain, nerves, muscles, bones, etc., in
short, the whole organism is beneficially
influenced and made more resistent to
disease by the purity of a blood stream
that no longer contains the toxins of
bacterially digested food.
"The further investigation of your
discovery by those competent will, I am
confident, result in such a simplification
of the rules for a healthy life that the
medical profession, at present forced
by a lack of knowledge of the vital processes
of nutrition to base their treatment
on the veriest empiricism, will
then be able to teach all and sundry
how to live. At present, all we can do
is to treat and perchance cure for a time
certain symptoms, allowing the patient
to return afterwards to a mode of life
that is really responsible for his malady.
'Disease is an abnormal mode of life.'
(Harry Campbell.) The three factors
in its causation are:
"(a) Cell structure.
"(b) Internal cell environment.
"(c) External body environment.
"Heredity determines, to a very large
extent, our cell structure, and consequently
our body structure.
"Sanitary science regulates our external
body environment as much as the
artificial and noxious habits of so-called
civilisation will allow. The mental and
physical external body environments
have also their effect on the organism.
"Your discovery of simple rules for
an Economic Nutrition will control the
internal cell environment. In doing
this, the predisposition to disease is
materially affected. The internal cell
environment being free from toxic
material, and the cell itself better nourished,
the cell's resistance to disease is
increased, the possible source of disease
being limited to the external body
environment.
"In concluding this endorsement I
can promise, to each and all who may
intelligently practise the principles of
Thorough Buccal-Digestion, a complete
knowledge of their body's food requirements,
or, as a patient of mine tersely
put it, they will learn the way to 'run
their own machines.'
"Yours ever,
"Ernest van Someren."
Dr. Van Someren and the author,
assisted by Dr. Professor Leonardi, of
Venice, as Consulting Physiological-Chemist,
and several colleagues, pursued
some experiments during the winter of
1900-1901; and Dr. Van Someren read
a paper on our work, entitled, "Was
Luigi Cornaro Right?", before the meeting
of the British Medical Association
the following August.
The paper is too long to reprint here
but it will be found in full in another
volume, entitled, "The A.B.-Z. of Our
Own Nutrition."
The following "Note" by Dr. Professor,
Sir Michael Foster, K.C.B., M.P.,
F.R.S. etc., is a further link in the chain
of development of appreciation of the
need of serious attention to the science
of human nutrition excited by this initiative.
(Dr. Foster is the Permanent
Honorary President of the International
Congress of Physiologists.)
NOTE BY SIR MICHAEL FOSTER, K.C.B.,
M.P., F.R.S.
"In 1901 Dr. Ernest Van Someren
submitted to the British Medical Association,
and afterwards to the Congress
of Physiologists at Turin, an
account of some experiments initiated
by Mr. Horace Fletcher. These experiments
went to show that the processes
of bodily nutrition are very
profoundly affected by the preliminary
treatment of the food-stuffs in the mouth
and indicated that great advantages
follow from the adoption of certain
methods in eating. The essentials of
these special methods, stated briefly and
without regard to certain important
theoretical considerations discussed by
Dr. Van Someren, consist of a specially
prolonged mastication which is necessarily
associated with an insalivation of
the food-stuffs much more thorough
than is obtained with ordinary habits.
"The results brought to light by the
preliminary experimental trials went to
show that such treatment of the food
has a most important effect upon the
economy of the body, involving in the
first place a very notable reduction in
the amount of food—and especially of
proteid food—necessary to maintain
complete efficiency.
"In the second place this treatment
produced, in the experience of its originators,
an increase in the subjective and
objective well-being of those who practise
it, and, as they believe, in their
power of resistance to the inroads of disease.
These secondary effects may indeed
be almost assumed as a corollary
of the first mentioned; because there
can be little doubt that the ingestion of
food—and perhaps especially of proteid
food—in excess of what is, under
the best conditions, sufficient for maintenance
and activity, can only be deleterious
to the organism, clogging it with
waste products which may at times be
of a directly toxic nature.
"In the autumn of 1901 Mr. Fletcher
and Dr. Van Someren came to Cambridge
with the intention of having the
matter more closely inquired into, with
the assistance of physiological experts.
The matter evoked considerable interest
in Cambridge, and observations were
made not only upon those more immediately
interested, but upon other individuals,
some of whom were themselves
medical men and trained observers.
"Certain facts were established by
these observations, which, however, are
to be looked upon as still of a preliminary
nature. The adoption of the habit
of thorough insalivation of the food was
found in a consensus of opinion to have
an immediate and very striking effect upon
appetite, making this more discriminating,
and leading to the choice of a
simple dietary and in particular reducing
the craving for flesh food. The appetite,
too, is beyond all question fully satisfied
with a dietary considerably less in amount
than with ordinary habits is demanded.
"Numerical data were obtained in
several cases, but it is not proposed to
deal with these in detail here, as they
need the supplementary study which
will be shortly referred to.
"In two individuals who pushed the
method to its limits it was found that complete
bodily efficiency was maintained
for some weeks upon a dietary which had
a total energy value of less than one-half
of that usually taken, and comprised little
more than one-third of the proteid consumed
by the average man.
"It may be doubted if continued
efficiency could be maintained with such
low values as these, and very prolonged
observations would be necessary to establish
the facts. But all subjects of the
experiments who applied the principles
intelligently agreed in finding a very
marked reduction in their needs, and
experienced an increase in their sense of
well-being and an increase in their working
powers.
"One fact fully confirmed by the Cambridge
observations consists in the effect
of the special habits described upon the
waste products of the bowel. These
are greatly reduced in amount, as might
be expected; but they are also markedly
changed in character, becoming odourless
and inoffensive, and assuming a
condition which suggests that the intestine
is in a healthier and more aseptic
condition than is the case under ordinary
circumstances.
"Although the experiments hitherto
made are, as already stated, only preliminary
in nature and limited in scope,
they establish beyond all question that
a full and careful study of the matter is
urgently called for.
"For this fuller study the Cambridge
laboratories do not possess at present
either the necessary equipment or the
funds to provide it. For the detailed
study of the physical efficiency of a man
under varying conditions, elaborate and
expensive apparatus is required; and
the advantages claimed for the special
treatment of the food just discussed can
only be fully tested by prolonged and
laborious experiments calling for a considerable
staff of workers.
"It is of great importance that the
mind of the lay public should be disabused
of the idea that medical science
is possessed of final information concerning
questions of nutrition. This is
very far indeed from being the case.
Human nutrition involves highly complex
factors, and the scientific basis for
our knowledge of the subject is but
small; where questions of diet are concerned,
medical teaching, no less than
popular practice, is to a great extent
based upon empiricism.
"But the scientific and social importance
of the question is clearly immense,
and it is greatly to be desired that its
study should be encouraged.
"M. Foster.
"April 26th, 1902."
The interest excited in Professor
Foster was coincident with that espoused
by Dr. Professor Henry Pickering
Bowditch, Professor of Physiology
of Harvard Medical School, and Dean
of American Physiologists. Under the
ægis of such encouragement the later
developments are not at all surprising.
In order to extend and verify the findings
of Dr. F. Gowland Hopkins, of Cambridge
University, England, as stated in
the preceding note by Professor Foster,
Professor Russell H. Chittenden, President
of the American Physiological
Society, Director of the Sheffield Scientific
School of Yale University, and one
of the leading chemico-physiological
authorities of the world, as measured by
accepted research work, volunteered to
submit the author to further test. The
report of this test is too long for reproduction
here. It was first published in
the Popular Science Monthly of June
1903, but will be found in full in the
"A. B.-Z." just referred to. The special
reference to the author's case and the
quoted report of Dr. William G. Anderson,
Director of the Yale Gymnasium
which tells the story of efficiency, was
as follows:
"The writer has had in his laboratory
for several months past a gentleman
(Horace Fletcher) who has for some five
years, in pursuit of a study of the subject
of human nutrition, practised a certain
degree of abstinence in the taking
of food and attained important economy
with, as he believes, great gain in bodily
and mental vigour and with marked
improvement in his general health.
Under his new method of living he
finds himself possessed of a peculiar
fitness for work of all kinds and with
freedom from the ordinary fatigue incidental
to extra physical exertion. In
using the word abstinence possibly a
wrong impression is given, for the habits
of life now followed have resulted in
the disappearance of the ordinary craving
for food. In other words, the
gentleman in question fully satisfies his
appetite, but no longer desires the
amount of food consumed by most
individuals.
"For a period of thirteen days, in
January, he was under observation in
the writer's laboratory, his excretions
being analysed daily with a view to ascertaining
the exact amount of proteid consumed.
The results showed that the
average daily amount of proteid metabolised
was 41.25 grams, the body-weight
(165 pounds) remaining practically
constant. Especially noteworthy also
was the very complete utilisation of the
proteid food during this period of
observation. It will be observed here
that the daily amount of proteid food
taken was less than one half that of the
minimum Voit standard, and it should
also be mentioned that this apparent
deficiency in proteid food was not made
good by any large consumption of fats
or carbohydrates. Further, there was
no restriction in diet. On the contrary,
there was perfect freedom of choice, and
the instructions given were to follow
his usual dietetic habits. Analysis of
the excretions showed an output of
nitrogen equal to the breaking down
of 41.25 grams of proteid per day, as
an average, the extremes being 33.06
grams and 47.05 grams of proteid.
"In February, a more thorough series
of observations was made, involving a
careful analysis of the daily diet, together
with analysis of the excreta, so
that not alone the proteid consumption
might be ascertained, but likewise the
total intake of fats and carbohydrates.
The diet consumed was quite simple,
and consisted merely of a prepared
cereal food, milk and maple sugar.
This diet was taken twice a day for
seven days, and was selected by the
subject as giving sufficient variety for
his needs and quite in accord with his
taste. No attempt was made to conform
to any given standard of quantity,
but the subject took each day such
amounts of the above foods as his appetite
craved. Each portion taken, however,
was carefully weighed in the
laboratory, the chemical composition of
the food determined, and the fuel value
calculated by the usual methods.
"The following table gives the daily
intake of proteids, fats and carbohydrates
for six days, together with the calculated
fuel value, and also the nitrogen intake,
together with the nitrogen output
through the excreta. Many other data
were obtained showing diminished excretion
of uric acid, ethereal sulphates,
phosphoric acid, etc., but they need not
be discussed here.
| Intake | Output of Nitrogen |
|---|
| Proteids | Fats | Carbohy | Calories | Nitrogen | Urine | Fæces | Total |
| Grams | Grams | Grams | | Grams | Grams | Grams | Grams |
| Feb. 2 | 31.3 | 25.3 | 125.4 | 900 | 5.02 | 5.27 | 0.18 | 5.45 |
| 3 | 46.8 | 40.4 | 266.2 | 1690 | 7.50 | 6.24 | 0.81* | 7.05 |
| 4 | 48.0 | 38.1 | 283.0 | 1747 | 7.70 | 5.53 | 0.81* | 6.34 |
| 5 | 50.0 | 40.6 | 269.0 | 1711 | 8.00 | 6.44 | 0.81* | 7.25 |
| 6 | 47.0 | 41.5 | 267.0 | 1737 | 7.49 | 6.83 | 0.81* | 7.64 |
| 7 | 46.5 | 39.8 | 307.3 | 1852 | 7.44 | 7.50 | 0.17 | 7.67 |
| Daily Av. | 44.9 | 38.0 | 253.0 | 1606 | 7.19 | 6.30 | 0.60 | 6.90 |
* Average of the four days.
"The main things to be noted in
these results are, first, that the total
daily consumption of proteid amounted
on an average to only 45 grams, and
that the fat and carbohydrate were
taken in quantities only sufficient to
bring the total fuel value of the daily
food up to a little more than 1,600 large
calories. If, however, we eliminate the
first day, when for some reason the subject
took an unusually small amount of
food, these figures are increased somewhat,
but they are ridiculously low
compared with the ordinarily accepted
dietary standards. When we recall that
the Voit standard demands at least
118 grams of proteid and a total fuel
value of 3,000 large calories daily, we
appreciate at once the full significance
of the above figures. But it may be
asked, was this diet at all adequate for
the needs of the body—sufficient for a
man weighing 165 pounds? In reply,
it may be said that the appetite was
satisfied and that the subject had full
freedom to take more food if he so desired.
To give a physiological answer,
it may be said that the body-weight remained
practically constant throughout
the seven days' period, and further, it
will be observed by comparing the figures
of the table that the nitrogen of
the intake and the total nitrogen of the
output were not far apart. In other
words, there was a close approach to
what the physiologist calls nitrogenous
equilibrium. In fact, it will be noted
that on several days the nitrogen output
was slightly less than the nitrogen
taken in. We are, therefore, apparently
justified in saying that the above diet,
simple though it was in variety, and in
quantity far below the usually accepted
requirement, was quite adequate for the
needs of the body. In this connection
it may be asked, what were the needs of
the body during this seven days' period?
This is obviously a very important
point. Can a man on such a diet, even
though it suffices to keep up body-weight
and apparently also physiological
equilibrium, do work to any extent?
Will there be under such condition a
proper degree of fitness for physical
work of any kind? In order to ascertain
this point, the subject was invited
to do physical work at the Yale University
Gymnasium and placed under
the guidance of the director of the
gymnasium, Dr. William G. Anderson.
The results of the observations there
made, are here given, taken verbatim
from Dr. Anderson's report to the
writer.
"'On the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th of
February, 1903, I gave to Mr. Horace
Fletcher the same kind of exercises we
give to the Varsity Crew. They are
drastic and fatiguing and cannot be
done by beginners without soreness and
pain resulting. The exercises he was
asked to take were of a character to tax
the heart and lungs as well as to try the
muscles of the limbs and trunk. I
should not give these exercises to Freshmen
on account of their severity.
"'Mr. Fletcher has taken these movements
with an ease that is unlooked for.
He gives evidence of no soreness or lameness
and the large groups of muscles
respond the second day without evidence
of being poisoned by carbon dioxide.
There is no evidence of distress after
or during the endurance test, i. e., the
long run. The heart is fast but regular.
It comes back to its normal beat quicker
than does the heart of other men of his
weight and age.
"'The case is unusual and I am surprised
that Mr. Fletcher can do the
work of trained athletes and not give
marked evidences of over exertion. As
I am in almost constant training I have
gone over the same exercises and in
about the same way and have given
the results for a standard of comparison.
(The figures are not given here.)
"'My conclusion given in condensed
form is this. Mr. Fletcher performs
this work with greater ease and with
fewer noticeable bad results than any
man of his age and condition I have
ever worked with.'
"To appreciate the full significance of
this report, it must be remembered that
Mr. Fletcher had for several months past
taken practically no exercise other than
that involved in daily walks about town.
"In view of the strenuous work imposed
during the above four days, it is
quite evident that the body had need of
a certain amount of nutritive material.
Yet the work was done without apparently
drawing upon any reserve the
body may have possessed. The diet,
small though it was, and with only half
the accepted requirement in fuel value,
still sufficed to furnish the requisite
energy. The work was accomplished
with perfect ease, without strain, without
the usual resultant lameness, without taxing
the heart or lungs, and without loss
of body-weight. In other words, in Mr.
Fletcher's case at least, the body machinery
was kept in perfect fitness without
the consumption of any such quantities
of fuel as has generally been considered
necessary.
"Just here it may be instructive to
observe that the food consumed by Mr.
Fletcher during this seven days' period—and
which has been shown to be
entirely adequate for his bodily needs
during strenuous activity—cost eleven
cents daily, thus making the total cost
for the seven days seventy-seven cents!
If we contrast this figure with the
amounts generally paid for average
nourishment for a like period of time,
there is certainly food for serious
thought. Mr. Fletcher avers that he
has followed his present plan of living for
nearly five years; he usually takes two
meals a day; has been led to a strong
liking for sugar and carbohydrates in
general and away from a meat diet; is
always in perfect health, and is constantly
in a condition of fitness for
work. He practises thorough mastication,
with more complete insalivation of
the food (liquid as well as solid) than
is usual, thereby insuring more complete
and ready digestion and a more
thorough utilisation of the nutritive
portions of the food.
"In view of these results, are we not
justified in asking ourselves whether
we have yet attained a clear comprehension
of the real requirements of the
body in the matter of daily nutriment?
Whether we fully comprehend the best
and most economical method of maintaining
the body in a state of physiological
fitness? The case of Mr.
Fletcher just described; the results
noted in connection with certain Asiatic
peoples; the fruitarians and nutarians
in our own country recently studied by
Professor Jaffa, of the University of
California; all suggest the possibility
of much greater physiological economy
than we as a race are wont to practise.
If these are merely exceptional cases,
we need to know it, but if, on the other
hand, it is possible for mankind in
general to maintain proper nutritive
conditions on dietary standards far below
those now accepted as necessary,
it is time for us to ascertain that fact.
For, if our standards are now unnecessarily high,
then surely we are not only
practising an uneconomical method of
sustaining life, but we are subjecting
ourselves to conditions the reverse of
physiological, and which must of necessity
be inimical to our well being. The
possibility of more scientific knowledge
of the natural requirements of a healthy
nutrition is made brighter by the fact
that the economic results noted in connection
with our metabolism examination
of Mr. Fletcher is confirmatory of
similar results obtained under the direction
and scrutiny of Sir Michael Foster
at the University of Cambridge, England,
during the autumn and winter of last
year; and by Dr. Ernest Van Someren,
Mr. Fletcher's collaborateur, in Venice,
on subjects of various ages and of both
sexes, some account of which has already
been presented to the British Medical
Association and to the International
Congress of Physiologists at its last
meeting at Turin, Italy. At the same
time emphasis must be laid upon the
fact that no definite and positive conclusions
can be arrived at except as the
result of careful experiments and observations
on many individuals covering
long periods of time. This, however,
the writer hopes to do in the very near
future, with the coöperation of a corps
of interested observers.
"The problem is far-reaching. It involves
not alone the individual, but
society as a whole, for beyond the individual
lies the broader field of the community,
and what proves helpful for the
one will eventually react for the betterment
of society and for the improvement
of mankind in general."
This test of work was accomplished
on food of the nitrogen value of less
than 7 grams daily, whereas the text-books
declare that from 16 to 25 grams
of nitrogen are necessary to human existence.
The heat value of the food
consumed during the test, and which
was like in amount to what had been
habitually taken by the author for about
five years previously (less than 1600 large
Calories), was only half the amount set
down by the majority of the presently-accepted
authorities as necessary to run
the body of a man of the author's weight
and activity. The heat-economy-showing
was verified a week or two later in
a 32-hour calorimeter measurement in
the apparatus of Professors Atwater and
Benedict at Middletown, Conn.
Evidence of even more significant
value has accumulated outside the field
of the author's own experiments and
tests. After more than a year of careful
trial among some thousands of patients
and among some hundreds of earnest
employees, Dr. James H. Kellogg, of
the great Battle Creek Sanitarium, has
adopted the suggestions contained in
this book as the first requirement of the
treatment at the Sanitarium. In like
manner, Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey,
the sturdy advocate of dietary-economy
for the past thirty years, author of the
"No-Breakfast" regimen, and various
books upon the subject of auto-nutrition
and dietary-rest, bent his attention upon
the effect of thorough buccal digestion
prescribed after a period of rest from outside
feeding, and here follows his appreciation
as extracted from personal letters.
Before quoting from the high appreciation
of Dr. Dewey and Dr. Kellogg
it may be well to state that the author
stands simply for a test-subject-factor in
a commonweal natural inquiry and no
praise of the subject attaches to the
person of the author. Whatever the
author is, in the enjoyment of health and
strength, is the result of natural causes
which have developed during his study of
the natural requirements in our nutrition.
Please forget the personal element and
consider that what is the author's gain
in efficiency as related, is the possible
possession of the reader as well, and
whatever work or test the author performs
is done as much for the reader
as for the author himself.
The several extracts from the letters
of Drs. Kellogg and Dewey; the statement
relative to an endurance-test made
on the author's fiftieth birthday, on a
bicycle in France, volunteered by Edward
W. Redfield, last year's Medal-of-Honorist
at the Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, as well as
medalist of last Exposition Universale,
Paris; are appreciated and accepted for
the subject they endorse; and, as before
stated, are entirely impersonal. Instead
of using dumb animals for test subjects
and getting their unwilling, and sometimes
abnormally deranged, participation,
the author takes pleasure in
submitting to the tests himself, and is
thus able to state "symptoms" and
"feelings" more accurately, perhaps,
than any dog could do. Were vivisection
necessary the author would willingly
submit to that inconvenience also;
but thanks to the skill of a Pawlow, and
the ingenuity of a Bowditch coupled
with the patience and persistence of a
Cannon, as fully related in the "A.B.-Z.,"
we not only get the economic results
but we are able to know and even
see some of the "reasons for things" as
well.
Interesting testimony and comment
relative to the present study will be
found at the end of the volume in communications
from Commandante Cesare
Agnelli, Clarence F. Low, Esquire, Baron
Randolph Natili, and one of unusual suggestiveness,
as evidence of the need of
further study of nutrition, from Dr. Hubert
Higgins of Cambridge, England.
With the evidence and interest just
outlined, it was not difficult for the
author to enlist the coöperation of
Surgeon-General O'Reilly of the United States
Army and the endorsement of General
Leonard Wood for larger investigation
of the subject. These officers, both of
them surgeons and medical doctors, had
supported the militant-martyr-scientist,
Dr. Major Walter Reed, in his great
sanitary accomplishment; had fought
yellow fever to a finish together in Cuba;
had traced its spread to a specific cause;
and were thereby encouraged to tackle
even so common and powerful enemies
as Indigestion and Mal-Assimilation.
The investigation now in progress at
Yale University, under the direction of
Professor Chittenden and under the
fostering auspices of the Trustees of
the Bache Fund, which is administered
by the National Academy of Sciences,
and other contributed support, is a Militant-Scientific
campaign which will not
cease until we know as much about human
nutrition, at least, as we know about
the nutrition of our domestic animals.
In this little book, however, is an account
of the first distress and war cry,
(to appropriate an expression of the Salvation
Army), and while the workers in
Science may take a considerable time
to make observations and investigate
the "reasons for things," the underlying
claims herein stated will, it is believed,
ultimately be established as fundamental
facts of both Hygiene and Physiology.
The psychic factor in digestion is
even more important than originally
claimed by the author, and fully accounts
for the strength attained by the
Christian Science movement.
In the "A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition"
are reprinted, for recent scientific
reports, in addition to the papers of Dr.
Van Someren and Professor Chittenden,
before mentioned, articles and lectures
by Dr. Professor Pawlow, the great
Russian physiologist and one of the
Board of Assessors in the International
Nutrition Investigation, described in
the "A.B.-Z.," (reprinted from the fine
English Translation by Dr. W. H.
Thompson, of Trinity College, Dublin;
English publishers, Griffin & Co.; American
publishers, Lippincott & Co.), on
the mental influence over the salivary,
gastric, and intestinal secretions. Also,
nearly an hundred pages of most virile,
readable, and important "Observations
on Mastication," by Dr. Harry Campbell,
M.D., F.R.C.P., of the North-west
London Hospital; reprinted by
courteous permission of the author and
of the editor of the Lancet. Also, a
description of the digestive process in
animals as seen by aid of the Röntgen,
or X-Ray; a most readable account of
the infinite patience and application of
Dr. W. B. Cannon, of the Harvard Medical
School, devoted to learning the
"reasons for things" done in the closed
and secret laboratory of the stomach
and intestines.
The above is a necessary advertisement
of another volume in the A.B.C.
Life Series; because the details of this
particular attempt to reduce the philosophy
of every-day life to profitable simples
is linked-up in several volumes developed
in the course of study of the subject
for location of the germinal causes.
"Menticulture" was the first of the
series and relates to the individual.
"Happiness" came next and located
the chief enemy of happiness in Fearthought,
the unprofitable element of forethought.
"That Last Waif" treated
the question as related to the Social
Whole, children in particular, and recommended
Social Quarantine; by extension
of infant education to the extreme
of allowing no child to escape educational
care. This present treatise deals
with the first requirement of such infantile
care and education, right feeding.
The great Battle Creek Sanitarium,
under the inspiration and direction of
Dr. J. H. Kellogg, has grown to enormous
proportions in thirty-seven years.
It began with one patient in a two-storey
frame house in a country village,
and has been largely influential in creating
the present proud distinction of
Battle Creek, Michigan, with its millions
upon millions of invested industrial
capital.
The "cure" is based upon the establishment
in the patient of right nutrition,
right functioning of the bodily
organs and secretions, and thereby assisting
Nature to perform the cure in
a natural manner. Pure foods and other
conditions of right nutrition have been
the particular study of the institution
staff, and large and finely furnished
chemical and bacteriological laboratories
have been installed for the study of
nutrition in a scientific manner.
The Battle Creek Sanitarium is a
purely humanitarian and philanthropic
institution. By perpetual charter, all
of the profits of the concern in all of
its ramifications are dedicated to the extension
of the American Medical Missionary
Cause, and there have been
already established more than sixty
branches of the parent institution in
different parts of the world, principally
in or near the chief cities of America,
and all are occupied with saving and
regenerating the physical body of the
sick as a foundation for possible moral
awakening and spiritual cultivation.
The work done by these humanitarian
institutions is most practical, and
the best evidence of the practicality is
their growth. Patients are charged what
they can conveniently pay, but none who
need are refused attention. Branches
are made self-supporting as soon as possible,
but are first nurtured by the parent
sanitarium. There are some hundreds
of physicians, nurses, and other attachés
of the different institutions, and
these are enthusiasts in the humanitarian
work, taking as wages only what
they need for most economical support,
"a mere pittance," and deriving their
chief compensation from satisfaction
gained in the service. All in all, it is
an expression of inspirational altruism
worthy of the example of the Good
Samaritan and a practical demonstration
of the Sermon on the Mount.
The special attention of the writer
was called to the work of the Battle
Creek Sanitarium organisation by an
American banker, Edwin C. Nichols,
Esquire, in London, at the time of the
last Coronation. The banker was conversant
with the growth and methods
of the Sanitarium, and had seen the
result of its missionary and sanitary
work. He exacted a promise from the
writer to visit Battle Creek on his first
opportunity, and Mr. Nichols has our
everlasting gratitude for leading us to
a more intimate acquaintance with so
splendid an illustration of humanitarian
possibilities when properly directed. It
is not alone the great Sanitarium and
its hospitals, and clinics, and shelters,
and refuges, and baths, and reading-rooms,
that are doing the greatest possible
good work, in demonstrating their
effective Christianity; but it is the private
waif-family of Dr. and Mrs. Kellogg
which shows what neglected children
are capable of when given a chance, and
which appeals to the author especially
as giving support to his ideal of a possible
effective Social Quarantine as presented
in his book, "That Last Waif."
Twenty-four neglected and sick children
of unfortunate parents have been
rescued from an almost hopeless condition,
and have been adopted into the best
of surroundings and culture, all promising
to become splendid wealth-productive
citizens and ornaments to society.
For more than a year Dr. Kellogg
and his staff of earnest workers have
been testing the suggestions offered in
"Glutton or Epicure," and in the treatise
of Dr. Van Someren, and appreciation
of these suggestions and the work that
has since been done to stimulate interest
in the question in high scientific circles
will be found in some extracts from Dr.
Kellogg's letters which the author has
received permission to print herewith.
"Battle Creek, Mich., Nov. 26, 1902.
"Dear Mr. Fletcher:
"I have your kind note of November
20th. Thank you very much for your
appreciative words. Your visit here
was a great inspiration to all of us. It
is not often we find a man who enters
into the things which we love so heartily
as you have done. The thing that
interested us especially was the fact that
you are the founder of a new and wonderful
movement, which is bound to do far
more for the advancement of the principles
for which we are working than all
that we have done or anything we can
do. I shall await with great interest
the development of your work and shall
expect to receive great light from your
efforts. We are all in training to find
our reflexes, and are expecting to make
a great deal out of this."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Dec. 21, 1902.
"My dear Friend:
"I have received the beautiful book
which you sent me, 'That Last Waif, or
Social Quarantine.' It is a charming
volume. I devoured it eagerly, and I
find myself in the position of an eager
disciple sitting at the feet of a master.
Your ideas of social regeneration strike
deeper than those of any other modern
author, and I shall be glad to coöperate
with you in any way possible in promulgating
these principles. You have made
your book talk in a most impressive
way. From cover to cover it is simply
admirable and must do a world of good.
I shall write a little notice of it for my
journal, Good Health.
"Again thanking you for this interesting
volume, I remain,
"Most sincerely and respectfully
yours,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"Dear Friend:
"I have shamefully neglected you.
I want to assure you how much I appreciate
your encouraging notes. I
read them to my colleagues, and they
were so much affected that tears came
into their eyes. I assure you we feel
that you are indeed a brother to us
in our work, and that God has providentially
sent you to be a friend to
us and to the principles which we
represent.
"I had a letter from Dr. Haig a few
days ago in which he mentioned you
and your work, and said he was much
interested in it. Dr. Haig, you know,
has done a great deal in calling attention
to uric acid in meats and other
foods. His work has not all been accepted
by great laboratory men, but
Dr. Hall, of Owen's Medical College in
Manchester, has recently reinforced his
results. I have at different times repeated
his experiments with interesting
results.
"I assure you we shall be glad to
receive any suggestions from any scientific
authority who may visit us, and if
there is any part of our work which can
be improved, we shall be glad to put it
there as soon as our attention is called
to it.
"Again thanking you for your kindly
interest in our work, I remain,
"Most sincerely yours,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"My dear Friend:
"I have yours of January 29th. I
am much interested in what you write
about your demonstration at New Haven.
I want to give the widest publicity possible
to your work. I find great good
in it. I am talking to my patients
continually about it. I know from my
experience that you are right. For
many years I have required my patients
to give special attention to chewing, and
have made it a written prescription for
each patient to chew a saucerful of dry
granose flakes at the beginning of each
meal. I have seen great good from this
method.
"With kindest regards, I remain, as
ever,
"Most sincerely yours,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"Dear Friend:
"I am exceedingly interested in the
facts which you communicate, especially
Dr. Anderson's report. It is quite remarkable.
I am verifying the same
ideas in my own personal experience.
I am confident you have discovered a
great and important principle and I shall
watch with interest future developments.
I am going to get our students interested
in it. If you feel disposed to do so, I
shall be glad to have you make out a
little line of experiments which will tally
with the experiments which you have
been conducting, so the results may be
compared.
"I have in hand a translation of Cornaro's
work which I have been thinking
of publishing. It occurred to me that
perhaps you would be able to write a
little chapter for this work, or an introduction.
I am going to get it out in
nice shape, and I trust it may be the
means of doing good in inclining those
who read it toward a simpler life. I am
greatly interested in the ideas which you
present in your various books.
"I hope you will have a safe journey
to Italy and back.
"I remain, as ever,
"Very sincerely and respectfully
yours,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"My dear Mr. Fletcher:
"I have yours of March 19th. I
thank you very much for promising to
write an introduction for the edition of
Luigi Cornaro's life. You are just the
man to do it. I propose to get the book
out in neat, tasty shape. Shall be glad
to have suggestions from you on this
point. The manager of a large denominational
publishing house in Chicago is
interested and wants to publish it with
us. He has promised to help about the
artistic features.
"As regards our medical college, I
ought to have told you that we are incorporated
in the State of Illinois. Our
medical school is really legally located
in Chicago. We always have one or
more classes down there for dissection,
clinical work, and doing dispensary and
missionary work in the city. Our school
is officially recognised. Our diplomas
are recognised in this country and in
most foreign countries; our diplomas
are recognised, in fact, in all countries
which recognise American diplomas.
The work done in our school is recognised
by the best schools. Jefferson
accepts students from our third year
into their fourth, the graduating year,
without examination. Kings College in
Kingston, Canada, does the same; also
Trinity College in Toronto, and other
leading schools in this country. Our
College is a member of the American
Medical Association along with Bellevue,
University of Pennsylvania, University
of Michigan, Rush Medical College, and
other leading schools. We have placed
our standard high so that no one could
object to the reform features of our
work on account of incompetency. Our
students are admitted to practice in
New York, having passed the examinations
of the State Board. Our best
reason for believing that our diplomas
are recognised everywhere is because
of students from the College having
passed the examinations in nearly every
State. One of our students recently
graduated from the University of Dublin
after having spent a year there, as
they require five years instead of four
years as with us.
"Your experiments are surpassingly
interesting. Your performance with Dr.
Anderson was phenomenal. I confess
you are a physiological puzzle. If chewing
accomplishes these wonderful things
for you, it is certainly worth the while.
I am training myself from day to day
to masticate my food more and more
thoroughly and I confess there is greater
good in it than I ever imagined.
"I am sending you a little box of foods
that I think you will like, especially the
protose roast, the gluten biscuit, and
the chocolates.
"I would like to get hold of a list of
your books; I want to put them into the
hands of our students to read. Kindly
give me a list of the names and the
publishers and I will esteem it a favour.
"I might have said further in reference
to our College that it is listed by the
New York Board of Regents as well as
by the Illinois State Board of Health.
We are going to make considerable
improvement in our school the next
year. We are trying to put up a new
building. We need $100,000 very much,
as our work has no endowment and it
requires very great sacrifice and most
strenuous effort to keep it going. Our
teachers work for a mere pittance and
our students are compelled to save and
economise in every way to get through.
Nearly all of them have to pay their
way in work of some sort.
"By the way, I am taking liberty to
send you with this, copies of some little
booklets which I have just gotten out
in reference to our work.
"I am, as ever,
"Your friend,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"My dear Friend:
"I have your kind note of June 21st.
I am happy to be remembered by you
tho I have neglected writing you. I
was afraid my letter would not find you
on your journeys.
"We are chewing hard out here at
Battle Creek, chewing more every day.
We are continually thinking and talking
of you and the wonderful reform
you set going. We have gotten up a
little 'chewing song' which we sing to
the patients. It is only doggerel but
it helps to keep the idea before our
people. We dedicated it to you and I
am going to send you a copy of it as
soon as the printers get it ready. If you
feel too much disgraced I will take
your name off.
"That little book on 'Cornaro' is not
out yet. We have been waiting for
the introduction from you. We can
wait as much longer as is necessary,
as you are the man to furnish this
introduction.
"I hope you will come West some
time this summer so you can drop in
and see us in our new building. We
are not quite in perfect running order
yet, but we shall soon be fixed in good
shape and will be delighted to have
you with us. You have helped us
greatly in calling our attention to the
great importance of chewing. We had
known it for a long time but had not
practised it. You demonstrated the
thing in such a graphic way that the
whole world is constrained to listen.
"Thanking you for your kind note,
"I remain, very sincerely yours,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"My dear Mr. Fletcher:
"I have your kind favour of July 14.
You are doing me altogether too much
honour. I am only a plodding, humble
doctor, and have never had any opportunity
to do any great thing, because of
the limits of my abilities, and because I
have not the opportunity to devote my
energies to any one special thing; but
have so many things to do that I can do
nothing very well.
"I remember Dr. Krauss very well.
He has for some years been assistant
to Prof. Winternitz, the Professor of
Nerve Diseases in the Medical Department
of the Royal and Imperial University
of Austria. He seemed a very
able physician and a delightful gentleman.
I was very glad to meet him.
"I have already sent you a copy of a
little booklet entitled 'The Building of
a Temple of Health.'
"We will be most happy to have a
visit from you. I would like to know
about what time you are coming, and I
will endeavour to be here. I have a call
to give an address at Chautauqua, N. Y.,
early in August, and if I do not know
when you will be here, I might possibly
be away, which I should consider a
great misfortune.
"We have nothing here, I am sure,
which will be new to scientific men,
and I apprehend that they will have
a very different opinion of our work
than you have.
"I have a little book which I think I
have not sent you, entitled 'The Living
Temple.' I will send a copy to you;
also a copy of the 'Chewing Song,'
which is now out. It is nothing but a
cheap thing, intended only for my own
little folks; but it got out, and several
people wanted it, so I have allowed it
to be put in print. The purpose was,
of course, simply to impress the chewing
idea. Of course you are well, as
you are apt to be well by chewing
well.
"By the way, I met a disciple of
yours a day or two ago. He was
Senator Burrows, from Kalamazoo. He
called with his wife and some other
ladies, and Mr. Rose, the chief clerk of
the U. S. Senate, to make us a little
visit. I had a very delightful chat with
them. On remarking to the Senator
that he did not look any older than
when I saw him last, but seemed to
be very well, he told me he was in
perfect health, and he expected to live
for ever. He had recently gotten hold
of something that was doing him so
much good that he believed he should
never be sick. I begged to know his
secret, and found it was chewing. I
asked him how he discovered it, and he
told me he had learned it from your
delightful book. You are certainly promoting
the most important hygienic reform
which has been brought forward in
modern times. When you visit us again,
you will see in our dining-room of our
new building more Horace Fletcher disciples,
and more hard chewers than you
ever saw together in one place in your
life before. Our doctors and helpers are
taking hold of it with great enthusiasm,
and I trust we shall be able to render
you some good service in promoting
this good idea, for which you certainly
deserve the gratitude of the whole
world.
"Hoping to have the pleasure of a
visit from you soon, I remain, as ever,
"Yours most sincerely and respectfully,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"Dear Friend:
"Your kind notes of August 7th and
11th received. I have asked the Publishing
Department to open an account
with you and send you everything you
order promptly at publisher's discount.
"'The Living Temple' is published
for the benefit of the Sanitarium. Everything
received from it goes toward paying
for the new building. The cost of
printing, paper, and binding is paid for
by contributions, so all the money received
goes toward the building fund
for the Sanitarium. I hope by this and
other means to get the building paid for
before I die.
"I think your chewing reform is of
more importance to the world than you
realise. You must have a great fund of
good cheer with you; doubtless because
you chew! I told our patients here that
I had heard from you that King Edward
was chewing. It interested and amused
them very greatly. The idea of 'munching
parties' is a good one.
"As ever,
"Your friend,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"Dear Mr. Fletcher:
"I have yours of August 20th with
the list of persons to whom you desire
to have 'The Living Temple' sent. The
books are already sent together with a
little note calling attention to them.
"Your continued courtesies are putting
us under obligations which we can
never repay.
"There are a lot of devils of different
sorts to be cast out, and I am sure the
dyspeptic devil is about the worst and
the meanest of them all.
"A quartette sang the 'Chewing
Song' just before my lecture in the parlour
last evening. The great parlour was
filled to its utmost capacity. The people
cheered heartily, not at the singing nor
the song, but the sentiment. I took
occasion to tell them I thought Mr.
Horace Fletcher, in inaugurating the
chewing reform, had done more to help
suffering humanity than any other man
of the present generation, and that I felt
very much mortified that we had neglected
this important matter to such
an extent here that you had to come to
the Sanitarium and be a missionary of
good health and urge this important
matter upon our attention. I feel that
we are all greatly indebted to you, and
seem to be getting continually more and
more into your debt, and I do not know
any way to discharge the obligation;
but if any accident should ever happen
to you so you get ill, it will certainly be
a delight to us to have the opportunity
to minister to you if you will permit us
so to do.
"I am glad you have postponed your
visit until October, as by that time we
shall have many things in better working
order, and our medical class will
be here. I want to have our medical
students meet you.
"I told Mr. Nichols the other day you
were coming to visit us. He was greatly
delighted to hear this. He feels as I do
that the work which you have inaugurated
is the most important movement
which has been started in modern times.
"I remain, as ever,
"Fraternally yours,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"Battle Creek, Mich., Jan. 22, 1903.
"Dear Friend:
"I have your kind note of the 23d
inst. I am sure that one of my letters
to you has been lost. I wrote promptly
telling you that you were at liberty to
use anything I have written you respecting
your work.
"I am more and more enthusiastic respecting
the value of thorough chewing.
I have read with great interest Dr. Harry
Campbell's articles, and am republishing
in Modern Medicine a large part of what
he has written.
"I have been thinking whether I
might dare ask permission from you to
publish your article 'What Sense' as a
tract. Possibly it is already printed in
that way. I would like to circulate it
widely among my patients, and our nurses
and doctors. I am doing my best to get
them all to chewing, and have had great
benefit myself from thorough mastication.
"Our Medical School has just begun
again, and I have one nice class of sixteen
students who are going to devote
themselves to the study of applied physiology,
and all of them will experiment
on the effects of thorough mastication
in relation to the quantity of food; also
in relation to the quantity of proteids.
If you would like the details of the results
of the experiments, I will give them
to you later.
"By the way, if you have any written
or printed outline of data which you
think it desirable to collect, I will be
glad to have it as a help to us in researches
of this sort. We have prepared
our laboratory to do almost anything
that needs to be done, and we have a
whole lot of enthusiastic young men and
women who will enter into this thing
with great zeal, and we will be glad to
coöperate with you thoroughly as I feel
that you have introduced a line of research
and investigation which is of
immense importance. I have read with
great interest Prof. Chittenden's article
in the Popular Science Monthly, and
I can but feel that you are a heaven-sent
missionary to the world in this matter of
diet reform.
"I remain,
"As ever your friend,
"J. H. Kellogg."
"P. S.—I have for many years given
a good deal of attention to the matter of
mastication. It has been my regular
prescription for all my patients for many
years to eat at the beginning of each meal
some Granose Flakes. The purpose of
this was to secure increased activity of
the salivary glands, and to encourage
the habit of mastication. I have found
immense benefit from this practice.
"I appreciate exceedingly all the good
things you are sending me. What a delightful
time you must have had in the
Adirondacks! I have never had such
a pleasure in my life, as I have had my
nose continually on the grindstone at
work since I was ten years of age, with
no vacations at all. It is a remarkable
spectacle that these great men, these
learned professors and scientists, and
army medical men, should be coöperating
so enthusiastically with a layman to
learn the true philosophy of life; but it
has always been so. The great discoveries
have not been made by great scientists
and great doctors, but by men
whose minds were above the bias of
prescribed education, and who were able
to learn from the great book of nature,
which is the book of God.
"When you come again I hope you
will have time to stay with us a little
while so we can have some good chats.
I would like to sit down and go into the
heart of things with you, when I think
we should find our ideas running very
close together. We shall expect to see
you next month. I have to be away for
a few days sometime during the month,
so I hope you will let me know a little
while before you come about what time
to expect you.
"J. H. K."
(At the first writing Dr. Dewey had had the method
of treating food commented on in his letters under
trial for three years; it having been communicated to
him by the author among the first.)
"Meadville, Penn., Nov. 17th, 1901.
"My dear Mr. Fletcher:
"In the line of dietary form you have
done better work than the entire medical
profession has done from the dawn
of History. This matter of eating the
way you preach and practise, serves
wonderfully to save the waste of energy,
which is a direct robbery of brain
power, in the stomach. It also saves
an undue waste of food, the burden
of over-weight, and above all things,
the waste of disease. You should enlarge
'Glutton or Epicure' and push
it. My allusion to this little book in
my last book has brought me many
letters of inquiry, and I always commend
it as a work of the highest practical
importance.
"I have received the article of Dr.
Van Someren, and I wish I had scores
of them to send to my patients. I have
read it with the greatest interest, and
shall keep it most of the time in the
mail pouches.
"In these latter times I am becoming
more and more impressed with the
results of over-food even with the
well, until now I feel that the pussy
belly is a matter so clearly attributable
to gluttony as to be a cause of
shame, at least, in the physiological
sense....
"I hope you will feel it a duty to enlarge
and expand the usefulness of 'Glutton
or Epicure.' The people are ripe in
this country for just such a book.... I
feel that you are doing the most important
work in physiological investigation
of any living man, and we in this country,
especially, need all your new material
as an addition to the book...."
(Two years later; after five years' test.)
July 20th, 1903.
"What you have done to unfold
physiologic mastication means more for
human weal than all the mere medical
prescribers have given the world from
Adam to the present moment. I have
tested the method you advise with the
ailing, as you could not have had so
large an opportunity to do. I have
been having the care of fasters for
the past twenty-six years, and now all
of them, when they return to their
healthy appetite and feeding, have to
'Fletcherise' every morsel. Just now
a man has ended a thirty-two day fast
under my care, and has begun taking
food again, with an appetite and a relish
that his memory does not recall having
enjoyed before. He swallows nothing
that is not reduced to thin liquid.
Only occasional abstinence from food
for a time and such attention to mastication,
makes health possible with the
majority of people, tempted by quantities
of soft and rich foods. No other
one has taught so wisely how available
brain power can be saved from wastage
in the stomach, as have you—the value
is beyond all estimate.
"It has been given to me to become a
teacher among those who have neither
time nor means to cultivate health;
mine to teach them how to get all the
health possible, without the use of any
of the health arts. In dispensing the
new physiology of dietary rest I have
had need of all the time possible, with
none left for the experiments of science,
hence I have done little or nothing to
speak of in the experiment way suggested
in your letters.
"I am very glad to hear from you
again, and shall be pleased to have you
indicate the number of the Popular
Science Monthly, in which Professor
Chittenden's article on your work at
Yale appeared, so that I can send for
it. Think of this, my dear Mr. Fletcher,
what a conservation there is of energy,
brain-power-reserve and even soul-force,
in saving it from waste in worrying
about and literally pushing quantities
of avoidable rubbish through thirty feet
of the alimentary canal; and this is just
what is accomplished by your method
of making the jaw muscles and salivary
glands do all their whole duty in the
matter of daily food."
September 3d, 1903.
"I send you a whole cargo of thanks
for the fine book you sent me (Dr. J. H.
Kellogg's 'Living Temple') and the
'Chewing Song' (taught and used as
a reminder at the Battle Creek Sanitarium).
The latter is the most important
kind of a song ever voiced during
the age of man. I have been trying to
get time to write you some physiology,
but am very busy with my correspondence
with distant patients. Will do
so soon."
September 12th, 1903.
" ... What I would like best to
express to you is my appreciation of
the exceeding good you have done me
in teaching how to save energy available
for brain-power by 'Fletcherising'
all foods before swallowing. In the
case of dropsy, I have previously written
about, I am confident the sole means
of success that is being accomplished
now, is due to the 'Fletcherising' of all
morsels. The patient spends never less
than an hour and a half over his one
meal a day. At the end of his former
fast, with his weight of 250 lbs. cut
down to 125 lbs., he was permitted to
take six meals a day, and in a few weeks
he was nearly as bad as ever, with his
weight raised to 180 lbs. Under my
care, and after only a seventeen-days' fast
(dietary rest), he was reduced again to
122-1/2 lbs. There has since been a
month of feeding one meal a day by
your method, with weight restored to
156 lbs. and no hint of returning dropsy—and
you are guilty of this, for no other
than the practice of thorough mastication
has been capable of such curing work.
"Your experiences, as detailed in the
Popular Science Monthly (June, 1903),
were read with absorbing interest. There
is no more important work for man to
do than that which you are doing. I
have not the patience for details, and
since the 'No Breakfast Plan' has become
somewhat known to the world, I
have been too busy; but the more I
study, and study you in particular, the
more I see and realise what of crimes
and of evil desires are due to over-food—to
bolting food.
"Now for something new! In an
article on 'The Mystery of Migrations'
in the Saturday Evening Post of August
22d (1903), it is given out that all migrating
birds let their last meal get thoroughly
digested, that they may start on
their long flight with empty stomachs;
that no power may be diverted to the
digesting machinery of their stomach.
What is the significance of this in relation
to the 'No Breakfast Plan?'
It is the true physiology of Instinct!"
(In response to a request for permission to quote
his appreciation.)
September 17th, 1903.
"Dear Mr. Fletcher:
"You may freely state my views of
the value of the work you have done
for humanity better than I have done.
Know this; I am not able to adequately
express my own appreciation of it, as
revealed in the rooms of the ailing
throughout several years of experience,
by any language at my command. Here
is something formal, if you like to use
it.
"Yours with admiration and gratitude,
"E. H. Dewey."
"P. S. The matter of thorough mastication,
as unfolded and insisted on by
Horace Fletcher, is the greatest practical
physiology that a dyspeptic, gluttonous
world ever has received. The
mouth-work,
in saving the strain of overwork
in the stomach and in the intestines,
will do more to prevent disease than all
other precautions. This is all the more
wonderful when it is considered that
Mr. Fletcher is a layman.[4]
"Here is the physiology involved,
as I find the effect of it in the sick-room.
Theoretically, digestion may take place
far down in the digestive tract, but it is
practically found that when this possibility
is resorted to, by reason of neglect
of the earlier buccal or gastric digestion,
trouble soon happens, and we doctors
are called in to try to effect cures by
medicine or otherwise. For every one
horse-power of work, as it were, that is
slighted in the mouth, it requires perhaps
ten horse-power of energy to repair
the neglect further on, and all of this
waste of energy is charged against the
brain-power, pleasure-power reserve on
storage.
"As I read the account of Mr. Fletcher's
showing of heat-economy, reported
by Professor Chittenden in his Popular
Science Monthly article, and which was
verified in the calorimeter measurement
at Middletown, I see at once, from my
own observations, that half the heat
commonly used in the human engine is
occupied in forcing the unnecessary
waste through thirty feet of intestinal
folds and convolutions."
The author feels very grateful to Dr.
Dewey, not alone for his encouragement,
but for the service he has rendered
humanity by his heroic stand for temperance
in feeding. He is one of the
sturdy Esculapian Luthers, whose cry
of reform comes from the impulse of an
inborn Christian Altruism.
When it becomes generally known,
as it some day will be, that overeating
and wrong-eating are the prime causes
of temptation to intemperance in drinking,
the measure of Dr. Dewey's service
to the Temperance Cause will be better
appreciated.