A very interesting contribution to this side of the question has been made by another disciple of Mr. Fletcher in the person of Dr. Hubert Higgins, late of Cambridge, England. In this paper he relates how he practised thorough mastication for a considerable length of time, setting himself to make a complete research into the anatomy and physiology of the process, and also to discover its application in the therapy of chronic disease. He discovered that Gegenbauer had noted that the powers of swallowing may be classified in two forms, depending upon whether the food is subjected to excessive comminution and thus very finely divided or is simply bitten without being masticated. Thus he differentiates between poltophagic and psomophagic animals, the former representing those which practise Fletcherism and the latter those who only bite their food before swallowing. Man is obviously psomophagic, but has the necessary anatomical structure in his soft palate to enable him to become poltophagic. The horse is a typical example of a poltophagic animal, and its soft palate is so close to its tongue that it cannot breathe through its mouth. The dog, on the other hand, is essentially psomophagic.

The kinds of swallowing in man may be illustrated by the swallowing of water. In the psomophagic method the water is simply pushed against the soft palate by the tongue; in the poltophagic method the process is much slower, and is carried out by employing movements of mastication on the water, which soon becomes warm, and, as this condition arises, is automatically carried into the oesophagus by a series of short deglutitions. He concludes that the soft palate in man and the poltophagic animals is an organ for the digestion of starch in the mouth, thus supporting Fletcher's contention that there is a natural reflex in the region of the glosso-epiglottidean folds only excited by foods specially prepared by prolonged mastication.

On the other hand he is convinced that prolonged conscious mastication with the rejection of all fibrous material does harm - unless where atony of the colon exists - by causing coprostasis and inducing atrophy of the muscular coat of the intestine. He counsels caution in the adoption of any of the theoretical dietetic practices and believes that the evil results of a too long continuance of Haig's or Chittenden's method may work irreparable damage on the system, although the effects may be slow in declaring themselves. In other words, he gives convincing testimony of the utility of careful mastication, without such excessive attention to this or any other dietetic practice as is advocated by their respective promoters. From this point of view, therefore, he is a powerful supporter of the practice of moderation in all things, the conclusion at which most men arrive who take the trouble to investigate any of the exaggerated procedures.