Part 35

Living is easy and life may be made constantly happy by beginning right; and the right beginning is none other than the careful feeding of the body. This done there is an enormous reserve of energy, a naturally optimistic train of thought, a charitable attitude towards everybody, and a loving appreciation of everything that God has made. Morbidity of temperament will disappear from an organism that is economically and rightly nourished, and death will cease to have any terrors for such; and as fear of death is the worst depressant known, many of the worries of existence take their everlasting flight from the atmosphere of the rightly nourished.

The wide interest now prevalent in the subjects treated in The A. B. C. Life Series is evidenced by the scientific, military, and lay activity, in connection with the experiments at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University and elsewhere, as related in the "A. B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition" and in "The New Glutton or Epicure" of the series.

The general application is more fully shown, however, by the indorsement of the great Battle Creek Sanitarium, which practically studies all phases of the subject, from health conservation and child saving to general missionary work in social reform.

HORACE FLETCHER.

Instructions Issued by the United States Army Medical Department For the Students of the Army Medical Schools

METHOD OF ATTAINING ECONOMIC ASSIMILATION OF NUTRIMENT AND IMMUNITY FROM DISEASE, MUSCULAR SORENESS, AND FATIGUE

1. Feed only when a distinct appetite has been earned.

2. Masticate all solid food until it is completely liquefied and excites in an irresistible manner the swallowing reflex or swallowing impulse.

3. Attention to the act of mastication and insalivation, and appreciation of the taste thereby secured, are necessary, meantime, to excite the flow of gastric juice into the stomach to meet the food, as demonstrated by Pawlow.

4. Strict attention to these two particulars will fulfil the requirements of Nature relative to the preparation of the food for digestion and assimilation; and this being faithfully done, the automatic processes of digestion and assimilation will proceed most profitably and will result in discarding very little digestion-ash (fæces) to encumber the intestines or to compel excessive draft upon the bodily energy for excretion.

5. The evidence of this economy is observed in the small amount of excreta and its peculiar, inoffensive character, showing escape from putrid bacterial digestion such as brings indol and skatol into evidence offensively.

6. When the digestion and assimilation has been normally economic the digestion-ash should be formed into little balls ranging in size from a pea to a so-called Queen Olive, according to the food taken, should be quite dry, and have only the odour of moist clay or a hot biscuit. This inoffensive character remains indefinitely after excretion until the ash completely dries or disintegrates like rotten stone or wood.

7. The weight of the digestive-ash should range (moist) from 10 grams a day to not more than 40-50 grams a day, according to the food; the latter estimate being based on a vegetarian diet and may not call for excretion for many days (3 to 8); infrequency indicating best conditions. The aseptic condition of the excreta renders retention in the intestines quite harmless and gives opportunity for perfect assimilation of the nutriment.

8. Fruits may hasten peristalsis, but not necessarily, if they are thoroughly treated in the mouth as sapid liquids rather than as solids, and are insalivated, sipped, tasted, into absorption in the same way wine tasters test and take wine and tea tasters test tea. The latter spit out the tea after tasting, as otherwise it vitiates their taste and ruins them for their discriminating profession.

9. Milk, soups, wines, beer, and all sapid liquids or semi-solids should be treated in this manner for the best assimilation and digestion as well as for the best gustatory results. The care recommended will reduce the quantity tolerable by the appetite and lead to habits of healthy temperance, but secures maximum satisfaction.

10. This would seem to entail a great deal of care and bother and lead to the waste of time.

11. Such, however, is not the case. To restore the natural protective reflexes in the beginning does require strict attention and persistent care to overcome life-long habits of nervous haste, but if the attack is earnest the habits of mouth-treatment and appetite discrimination soon become fixed and guide the deliberation in taking food unconsciously to the feeder.

12. Food of a proteid value of 5-7 grams of nitrogen and 1500-2000 k. calories of fuel value, paying strict attention to the appetite for selection and carefully treated in the mouth, has been found to be the quantity best suited to metabolic economy and efficiency of both mind and body in sedentary pursuits and ordinary business activity; and, also, such habits of economy have given practical immunity from the common diseases for a period extending over more than five years, whereas the same subject was formerly subject to periodical illness. The same economy and immunity have shown themselves consistently in the cases of many test subjects, covering periods of three years, and applies equally to both sexes, all ages, and other idiosyncratic conditions.

13. The time necessary for satisfying complete body needs and appetite daily, when the habit of attention, appreciation, and deliberation have been installed, is less than half an hour, no matter how divided as to number of rations. This necessitates industry of mastication, to be sure, and will not admit of waste of much time between mouthfuls.

14. Ten minutes will completely satisfy a ravenous appetite if all conditions of ingestion and preparation are favourable.

15. Both quantitive and qualitive supply of saliva is an important factor in buccal (mouth) preparation of nutriment, but attention to these fundamental requirements soon regulates the supply of all of the digestive juices, and, in connection with the care recommended above, insures economy of nutrition, and, probably, immunity from disease.

(Signed) HORACE FLETCHER.

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Transcriber's Notes

Typographical errors have been silently corrected and hyphenation standardised. Variations in spelling and punctuation are as in the original. In order to minimise the width, full stops have been removed from the headings of the table on page 29. The following alterations have been made: Pages 49 and 120 Preceeding corrected to preceding. Page 66 United Army changed to United States Army. Page 138 Replaceing corrected.

Italics are represented thus, italic.