THE HYGIENE OF NUTRITION 211 



and, second, the secretions of the digestive tract are less 

 voluminous when there is only a light task for them to 

 perform. Well-marked constipation is established, the 

 Fletcherite having only one or two evacuations in a week, 

 but the material retained is apparently innocuous. 



Many of the ills referable to auto-intoxication often dis- 

 appear when the practice of prolonged chewing is followed. 

 This could be explained as resulting from the limitation 

 of colon accumulations, but seems in part to proceed from 

 the strange fact that under the system the consumption 

 of protein invariably shrinks even more than in proportion 

 to the general restriction of the food. This occurs when the 

 subjects are guided entirely by instinct and have no the- 

 ories in regard to the matter. Indifference to meat or even 

 an antipathy to it may be developed. 



One does not have to look far to see examples of the 

 practical working of the Fletcher system, though the per- 

 sons who illustrate it may have no associations with the 

 name. Middle-aged and elderly housewives are to be 

 found in large numbers who are slow and frugal eaters, who 

 care little for meat, who are constipated, and who are mar- 

 vels of endurance in the execution of their hard tasks. 

 They sleep lightly and rise early habits diagnostic of 

 Fletcherism. They live to great ages, restlessly active to 

 the last. They show the strong points of the regimen; do 

 they display any drawbacks attributable to it? 



It is certainly possible to undereat. There can be no 

 reasonable doubt that the condition of the very poor would 

 be bettered if they could have more food, even though it 

 were of no finer quality than that to which they are 

 accustomed. Crichton-Browne, an English writer, has 

 acutely pointed out that the allowance of the poorest classes 

 comes near to the ideal of the New Haven School, and that 

 it is also almost identical with the "punishment diet" of 

 British prisons. It may well be that a diet which is suc- 

 cessful in connection with the best housing conditions and 

 a life abounding in stimuli to the intellect and the feelings 

 may not support cheerfulness and vigor in those whose 



