242 MANNER OF TAKING FOOD. 



imperfect, rightly to perform the work of digestion if food is again 

 taken before the stomach has had time to regain its tone and energy. 

 If taken before the work of digesting the previous meal has been 

 completed, the effects will be still worse, because the partially 

 digested food becomes mixed with that last taken, and the stomach 

 is burdened with the whole mass, which has become at once too 

 large for its already fatigued and exhausted forces. The intervals 

 between meals should therefore be long enough for the whole quan- 

 tity to be digested, and for a sufficient period of repose of the 

 exhausted organs. The importance of these suggestions increases in 

 proportion to the feebleness of the person and the debility of the 

 stomach. They should be regarded especially in the feeding of 

 infants and older children. Persons recovering from severe illness 

 should pay special heed to them if they wish to regain flesh and 

 strength rapidly. The rapidity of the digestive process, other things 

 being equal, is in proportion to the habitual activity of the life, and 

 persons of sedentary habits are therefore more liable to eat too often 

 than others of more busy and stirring pursuits, and the consequen- 

 ces with the former are worse. 



Mastication This should be as nearly complete as possible; 

 that is, all solid articles of food should be reduced to a state of com- 

 parative fineness by chewing before they are swallowed. The 

 gastric fluid will then mix with it more readily, and act more vigor- 

 ously in reducing it to chyme. " Bolting, 3 ' that is swallowing food 

 slightly masticated, tends to derange the digestive apparatus and 

 impair the nutritive powers. 



Motion of the Jaws This should be slow rather than 

 quick, so that the salivary glands may have time to secrete a suffi- 

 cient quantity of saliva to moisten the food. If the food is swallowed 

 unmoistened by saliva the digestion is retarded; besides in rapid 

 eating more food is taken than the system demands, or than can be 

 easily digested. Laborers and business men, as well as people of 

 more leisure, should have ample time for taking their meals. 

 Imperfect mastication is a potent cause of dyspepsia. 



No Drinking- at Meals The use of tea, coffee, water or 

 any other fluid, is not required by nature's laws while taking a meal> 

 because the salivary glands are intended to supply fluid to moisten 

 the solid food. " Washing down " the food with drink instead 

 of slowly moistening it with saliva, tends to produce disease 

 not only in the salivary organs by leaving them in a state of com- 

 parative inactivity, but in the stomach also by the deficiency of the 

 salivary stimulus. Besides, large quantities of fluids used as drinks 

 unnaturally distend the stomach and lessen the energy of the gastric 

 juice by diluting it. These drinks when taken into the stomach 

 must be removed by absorption before the digestion of the food can 

 be even commenced. Drinks should never be placed on the table 

 until the solid food is eaten. The horse will never voluntarily leave 

 his provender nor the ox his hay, to wash it down. If we would be 



