FLETCHERISM

Evening Star, Issue 20055, 21 December 1928, Page 8

FLETCHERISM

FORTY-FIVE CHEWS TO MOUTHFUL ■“ FJetcherism,” the eating fad once endorsed by Mr Gladstone and John D. Rockefeller, has for tho first time in a generation been really tested. Like many other popular beliefs," it has proved to be a fallacy. Horace Fletcher traced most -of the world’* ills to hasty eating. His formula was that men should not eat at all unless their minds were calm and that physical -salvation lay in chewing —forty-five chews to a mouthful. Dr ,Harold G. 0 Hoick, a teacher of physiology at the University of Chicago,' instead of chewing forty-five times to each bite or feeling guilty because he did not, decided to test Fletcherisin.”. /For two and a-half years be bad been eating like any nnregenerate human being. Then for a year and a-half he “ Fletcherised ” with great thoroughness. Since then for six months- he has been eating normally. For alb that time he has records of his condition. . Dr Hoick found .that • in' comparison with his. two normal periods his weight sank thirty pounds during, the Fletcnerisation period, his muscular endurance dropped, his , basal •. metabolism . was lowered, his typing mistakes were more numerous. ■ Unchanged remained his i blood fires-; sure, -pulse, temperature, .sleeping time, and ’ ability, at .'mental multiplication. ; The oiie gain he, remarked was. a greater-, ability to solve" chess' 'problem's. Most surprising result of all, his food proved - less beneficial N His‘calory intake dropped from 3,200 to 2,800. This condition -he explains ■ by „ saying ; 'that, his mouth and - jaw . suffered- from .fatigue, and \so he lost appetite. , ’ John D. Rockefeller, who at the age of eighty-nine plays golf -every day, still Carries on. a modified- form of FletcherismT and attributes .to it.his-,bea]th and long life.. - ;