If the food is bolted, if the sense of taste is continually outraged, its power for discerning the limits of appetite becomes dulled and the sensitive guide is destroyed which indicates the time when the appetite should have been satisfied. A feeling of fulness in the stomach means an over satisfied appetite - in no sense is it a correct guide. Correct habits of diet alone, will restore all individuals - the "wrecks" - and there are thousands of them, broken down by alcoholic and other excesses, suffering from skin, intestinal and liver diseases. These can be cured of the craving for drink, and put in possession of natural manhood and vitality without the use of medicines, only with attention to mastication and diet, all within three months. We have yet to realize the wonderful possibilities involved in restoring degraded humanity by natural processes of living - this applies particularly to the dyspeptic and alcoholic "wrecks." For those who have never learned to "chew" food, the sooner this is begun the better. The learner is advised to begin with any dry food. Some of the best articles for this purpose are stale or dry bread, crackers or salted wafers, in both cases lightly buttered, English walnuts, dried raisins, discarding the seeds. These foods are not too hard, for a beginner, as a commencement, The ideal article, however, to begin with is "zweiback"; zweiback, a German word meaning twice baked, equivalent in a way to our toast, This may be made at home or can be had by having your baker make it. It is best made from whole wheat bread, first cutting the bread into slices and drying it in an oven; this can be toasted or baked through and through. When properly made it is crisp and hard, of a golden yellowish or brownish color, and as an article of diet is unsurpassed. Whatever food be used, it should be chewed until it is in a fluid or semi-fluid condition. This will mean about seventy movements of the jaws, before "zweiback" is ready to be swallowed. Probably fifty chews for stale bread, fifty to seventy-five chews for nuts, at least thirty chews for meat. This practise at munching may seem like child's play, but it will be found time well spent. With a little practice one will frequently chew with pleasure many articles of food one hundred or more times in order to become perfect in the art of masti cation. The more we chew the less we eat. When one acquires the habit of chewing, there will be no necessity for counting the chews. The sensation of taste will be so highly developed that there will be no disposition to swallow the food until it is reduced to a pulp, thoroughly insalivated. No one should have any difficulty about learning to chew food, especially when it is considered that gum chewing with most persons is an art, purposeless though it be. Like everything else having merit, the chewing of food, because of its importance, has been reduced almost to a fad, resulting in the formation of "munching" parties and societies, whose object apparently has been to reduce mastication to a fine art.

In order to acquire the lost art of chewing, or the masticatory instinct, it will be found that it will be but a short time before one finds out that there is under the new order of things an added zest and pleasure to eating. When you are enabled to chew all foods to a fluid, or semi-fluid, consistency, and as you are just about to swallow, if you are able to return the bolus of food to the mouth again just to give it an extra chew or two, you may consider you are entitled to the thirty-third degree, and a diploma as a perfect masticationist. This degree of perfection can be attained by anyone with a little practise. In short, if one wants to learn to masticate, let him chew all food as one chews gum, to get all the good out of it possible, swallowing being, for the time, secondary. As an evidence of the highly important nature of thorough mastication, the following may be of interest to the reader. Twenty years ago in writing on this same subject I wrote these words: "If the dyspeptic will bear in mind that the satisfaction of eating lies in the taste of food, and that this sensation is in the mouth and not in the stomach, he will chew his food longer, and with more satisfaction and benefit than ever before." Yet in the face of these words, attention to which would have led to perfect digestion, I was groping in the dark for at least fifteen years, experimenting with all kinds of foods, meats, no meats, milk diet, mixed diet, vegetable diet, anything but no diet, as well as medicines, but all to no avail.

The point I wish to emphasize in this connection is this: If one who is supposed to have a knowledge of matters of this kind has failed to grasp the importance of thorough mastication, or follow it to a definite conclusion, much less will the ordinary individual be impressed with its significance unless the various pitfalls are pointed out to him.

In order that mastication be thorough, more time will be required than is usually taken at meals. At least twenty to forty minutes will be required to masticate dry food; say thirty minutes as an average be required. Many a man will spend two or three, or more, hours at a theatre or concert, and think nothing of the time lost, yet he thinks himself unable to spend a few minutes extra on eating his food, as Nature in-tended he should, with plenty of leisure. Good digestion is the most powerful factor for health in a man's life, and the only way to have good digestion is to eat properly. Irrespective of the character of food, raw, cooked, or health foods, meat, nuts, fruits, or vegetables, plain, mixed, or complex diet, remember the secret of good digestion, first, last, and always, is Complete Mastication.