A friend of the author, who is an enthusiast in regard to the profitableness of an economic nutrition in assisting the strenuous life, went to lunch with a generous host in New York the other day, when the following conversation about the lunch to be ordered was heard. It partook of Wall-Street brevity, which is thought to be necessary in the rush of a midday snack or meal.

"What will you have? What! only a baked potato and a bottle of ginger ale? All right for a starter; but what are you really going to have? Nothing more! what is the matter with you? Come, now; tell me what you want for lunch? Stocks are badly off, but I haven't reached the starvation point yet. Don't treat me like that when I'm trying to treat you right and white. Brace up, old man, and have something to eat."

The intermediate replies can be imagined as in an overheard telephone conversation.

The host ordered for himself, as usual, a portion of tongue and a generous garniture of side dishes, and watched his guest with amused tolerance. The lunch proceeded, interlarded with talk about topics of mutual interest, and when a final halt was called the host had not taken more than one-quarter of his cold tongue and very sparingly of the accompanying side dishes. The guest had finished one of his baked potatoes, and had sipped his ginger ale enjoyingly, but had not taken more than half of the pint ordered. The appetites of both host and guest were amply satisfied, but without any of the heaviness which follows an unrestrained "hearty" meal. In tones of surprise the one-sided conversation, relative to the strangeness of the proceeding, continued as follows: "Well, I'll be switched! How in Wall Street did that happen! I haven't eaten half my usual lunch, and yet I have killed my appetite deader than the Ship Building Trust. I'm blessed if I can understand it. The blamed thing is uncanny. I don't believe it's true, but I'm satisfied all right even if I am hypnotised. Come and lunch with me every day. You're engaged as a regular companion boarder, and Freddie will pay the freight. You're cheaper than nobody. Come again! Come again!! Come always!!!"

The above is not an unusual case. The personal influence of the author and of his active colleagues has been visibly noted among parties where there was no sympathy with the "starving fad," and where there was even stubborn opposition to the thought of such a thing. But these same groups of non-interested objectors have visibly decreased their accustomed lunches and dinners, and some of them have found that a cup of coffee and a roll, the same as is habitually taken in Europe, outside England, serves as a breakfast better than the full meat affair formerly taken. They persist in declaring that they are not influenced by the chewing suggestion, but they show signs of some restraining influence, and observation reveals that in such groups the common annual and quarterly attacks of illness are less frequently or less severely suffered.

There is no doubt that Luigi Cornaro gave appreciative attention to his four three-ounce meals a day, and in giving attention properly insalivated his food. The inference is warranted. A man full of vigour and health and constructive energy such as Cornaro reports that he had in unusual abundance is not likely to confront a three-ounce ration of delicious food and proceed to bolt it as a dog bolts a piece of stolen meat. It is a matter of easy observation that a child given a single piece of sugar or sweet in any form will make it last as long as possible and get all of the taste out of it by most ingenious conservation; but the same child, if offered a box of "goodies" as it is passed around, or whenever the time given for possession of its contents is limited, will show the greed of a predatory or hunted or habitually maltreated animal and will not only grab as much as possible but will cram all possible into his stomach to satisfy the sense of greed, and then usually suffers the consequences of the double sin in the sickening re-taste of the gases of indigestion.

Cornaro undoubtedly made his three-ounce meals last as long as possible in order to enjoy the maximum of taste, and in so doing satisfied the natural requirements of appreciative attention and thorough insalivation. In like manner two small tumblers of the fresh grape juice (new wine—fourteen ounces), which he took as his sapid liquid in the course of a day in connection with his four meals, would allow only a sherry glass quantity to each meal, and with such a limited supply a person is not likely to toss off the liquid in great gulps as water is drunk to satisfy thirst, but it rather would be enjoyed as the wine-tasters enjoy wine, by their sipping practice, in pursuit of their profession. The influence of visible supply or of passing or permanent opportunity of possession is a most powerful suggestion in the cultivation of economy or prodigality, of greed or moderation, of healthy nouriture or plethoric indigestion.

Man was constructed and intended to hunt his food among the grains, nuts, roots, and other fruits of earth, and in hunting food to earn a keen appetite. He found his food scattered and ate it as he found it, with the true appreciation that difficulty of possession gives. In the primitive state the requirements of natural digestion are safeguarded; but with a plethora of food cooked and spiced and furnished with superfacilities for ingestion, the natural protection of difficulty is removed, and the victims of the luxury drop unconsciously into habits of abuse, like the overeating of to-day.

In order to escape the surrounding temptations it is necessary to have always in mind protective counter-suggestions which intelligently make use of the abundant and easy supply but limit the intake to the needs of the body as expressed by appetite when permitted to discriminate in its natural deliberate manner, and which only keeps pace with the natural dissipation of taste in the process of requisite insalivation. The chewing practice is but a means to this natural end, but it is a most important means, the same now as when teeth were used instead of patent grinders, and when taste took the place of spices and sauces and manufactured its own delights by the chemical action of saliva.

Among the Zuni Indians, observed by even recent travellers, it is the custom of the young girls of the pueblos to masticate wheat up to a given point of sweetness of taste and then to withdraw it from the mouth and collect it in a wooden dish until a sufficient quantity is secured, when the jaw-ground and saliva-sweetened "mess" is baked in the sun or by fire and becomes the "sweet cake" of the family. The change of the starch of the wheat or corn into sugary dextrose by the action of saliva, which is necessary to be done somewhere in the alimentary canal before it is assimilable nutriment, gives the sweet-cake quality to the food which is the dietary delicacy of these primitive people. By proper insalivation we perform the delectable service for ourselves instead of having it done for us by good young teeth aided by healthy saliva furnished by beautiful feminine assistance.