We must now engage our attention with dietetic theories which have little or no relation to the alimentary principles excepting in so far as they introduce a particular mode of preparing them for the great purpose of nutrition. They are, however, pregnant with interest, if it were only because lurking behind whatever conception or misconception gives them their title we shall almost certainly encounter the great doctrine of moderation. Most of the systems, indeed, are only a subterfuge for practically instilling this fundamental truth into the minds of those who could not otherwise be persuaded to control their appetites, but are successfully appealed to by the elevation of some minor detail of eating and drinking into a cult. This is unquestionably the most potent factor in the amazingly rapid dissemination of the doctrine of efficient mastication.

"At the great Battle Creek Sanitarium, where sometimes upwards of a thousand patients and often a thousand employees are busy as bees in studying the laws of health and efficiency, and where physical culture is one of the most vital departments, there is exposed a huge sign, 10 feet long and bearing letters a foot deep, with the legend 'Fletcherise.' " The full significance of these words cannot be estimated without a short history of their author, Mr. Horace Fletcher. An American layman of independent means, and just turned sixty years of age, he was some twenty years ago refused for life assurance on the ground of physical disability, chiefly from indigestion and obesity. Being a man of observation, imagination, and resource, he determined to devote himself to elucidate the etiology of his condition. After much careful and intelligent study, he formulated the law that food should never be eaten without an appetite sufficiently discriminating to be satisfied only with the article consumed, that it should be masticated till all the taste had been extracted from it, and only swallowed when what he called the swallowing impulse had been excited. This is the theory underlying the practice of what is by many termed "Fletcherism," to the promulgation of which its author has since its inception devoted his life, and a particularly interesting account of which is enshrined in a special treatise consecrated to its propagation.