The Press. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1913. THE OCCUPATION OF HEALTH

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14758, 30 August 1913, Page 10

The Press. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1913. THE OCCUPATION OF HEALTH

'Anyone with a sound digestion and tho mm" of the Press of three or four countries -can obtain much entertainment from the discussions and differences or "the public's advisers on private health. There is seldom anything amusing in tho differences of doctors by iv bedside, but when questions of souml living come to be discusswl with fervour in. the Press, when one man is positive tlmt a certain food to bodily salvation, and another man is sure it docs not; when vegetarians belabour meat-eaters, and ir.ent- < caters assault vegetarians; when in crvery panacea for health something dangerous is found —then the eonse of comedy in tho healthy onlooker begins to stir. The vegetarians, for instance, have mado great xiso of tho contention that m cat-cat iag produces premature old ago by hardening the arteries, but only tho other day tome European scientist? proved to his own satisfaction that a purely vegetarian diet had exactly tho sam'o effect , . One of tho laiest con<>frovexsies o£ the kind concerns what is

known as "Fletcherism." Somo years ago one Horace Fletcher, an American •of middle age, was a physical wreck. He bad, or was threatened with, almost as many diseases as tho man who, in a foolish moment, dipped into a medical dictionary at-tho British Museum, and found ho had everything but "housemaid's knee.' , (letting no relief from the doctors, ho tried what has come to be called after him. and by the supermastication of his food by chewing and chewing and chewing until there was nothing left, or if there was a residue, removing it from his mouth, ho won and kept perfect health. Flotchorisrn lias become a widespread cult in America, with Horace Fletcher as its high priest. Thousands claim to have found health by the eimplc process of chewing their food until there is nothing left to chew. Books have been writton on the subject, and thero may bo a magazine devoted to it. According to Mr Fletcher, it does not matter what you eat, it is all in tho chewing. This fiecms to the

non-expert person :i very simple and harmless remedy for bodily ills, though

it must make dinner parties rnthor tiresome, and (spoil ruin to busy restaurant-keepers. Hut, as is always tho case with such simple recipes for health, it hive been attacked. Dr. Elmer Leo, an American medical man, says Fletcherisrn is wrong. No nnimal, lie says, chews its food to a finish, and human digestion is not essentially different from that of the animals. Fletcherism he declares to ho an artificial fad. "There are somo persons/ ho says, "that Fletcheri.se water, coffee, '■ ten, and milk. I knew a convert " who rose at five, to tnlit kindling, " build a fire, toast bread, boil coffee, "and Flctchorizo an hour and a half

" before leaving for his work at seven." But superniastication is not only unnecessary ; it may be positively harmful. .Saliva in excess is a disea.se, known as ptyalism, and Fletcherism in artificial ptynlism. So if the doctor is right, the wiso man will eteer a middle course between insufficient mastication, with tho penalty of indigestion, and superniastication, with its consequent

ptyalasni

Tho discussion from which wo Have taken these facts is characteristic of the ago. Health has Income one of the commonest of occupations. Thousands of peoplo give moro attention \to it than to anything else. They go about feeling their pulses and looking at their tongues. Before meals they think what they shall eat, during meals they think of what the-y are eating, and after meals they worry over what they think they should not have eaten. And they aro encouraged by tho fulness, seriousness, and emphasis with which questions of food and drink aro discussed in print, and !by tho variety of roads seeming to lead to physical salvation. No scheme of diet would seem to be too bizarre to attract followers. Mr Chesterton does not groatly exaggerate when he'describes how an American reformer, believing that men were immensely improved by grazing after the manner of cows, "turned city men " out on all fours in a field covered with " veal cutlets"; how certain vegetarians, objecting to the shedding of plant blood, took to living on salt; and how this movement was attacked by a pamphlet, "Why Should Salt Suffer?" Flotcherism seems quite unobjectionable from a health point of view until someone asks, "Why should saliva suffer?" In spito of the immense amount of suffering and waste caused by wrong habits of eating and drinking, wo cannot help thinking that certain aspects of tho interest in diet and disease aro distinctly unhealthy. It seems obvious that one of tho rules of health is not to worry too much about it, just as a gentleman is a man who does not trouble to ask himself whether or not ho is one. When the visitor to the British Museum referred to went to his doctor and told him he had every diseaso under the sun except "housemaid's knee," tho doctor prescribed beefsteak and beer and "don't worry about things you don't understand." Within limits, and without insistence on cither of the items specifically mentioned, that was good advice.