Chapter 2

Remember you must not only chew your food to the consistency of cream for one or two months, you must make this practice a lifelong habit. If you cannot take time to eat a meal in this way, you had much better go hungry. To people who travel and must frequently take their meals in railroad eating houses, I would say, get some bread and butter sandwiches and eat them slowly while on the train. There is always a chance to secure all you need to eat, too. You may not always be able to sit an hour at the table--the time we should give to a meal if we eat as we should. I know many object to this rule on the ground that if we followed it we should get nothing else done. But that is nonsense. Did not the Master of us all say, "Are there not twelve hours in the day?" Then can we not devote three of the twelve to our food? If we have nine hours in which we are at our highest efficiency, is it not good sense, if we eat three meals a day, to give three hours to these meals? There is only one sane answer to the question; we should take an hour for a meal.

Every now and then some magazine writer will state that the chewing of food to a cream does not help anybody. He will tell you that you can swallow your food any old way and it will not hurt you in the least. In fact, I actually saw an article in one of our leading periodicals containing just such statements. We should, I suppose, have only pity for an editor who would give space to such stuff, and should also pity the poor wretch who by writing it is striving to attain notoriety. At any rate there is one excellent thing about such lies, they do harm for only a little while. When people find out that a thing is harmful to them, they usually quit it, no matter how many notoriety seekers are urging and encouraging them to keep on.

Usually the sufferer with "nerves" is the only one in the household who will eat sparingly and chew his food slowly. But now and then I find an intelligent, sympathetic man who will do so because it is helpful to his wife. He sympathizes with her infirmity, and with fine self-denial eats as she does. And note this: he usually derives benefit from so doing. Time after time when I have put a nervous woman under this regimen, and then her husband elected to go along with her, I have had the man come to me and say: "Well, doctor, I declare I'm feeling a whole lot better myself! I don't get sleepy any more during the daytime, and that pain I used to have in the region of my liver is gone!" And so on and on.

The fact is just this: anybody who follows the rules that I learned to apply in my own case cannot fail to be benefited. And although those not inclined to "nerves" can eat a greater variety of food, it's greatly to be desired when there is a nervous person in a household of grownups that all other members of the family enter together into this thing. It could not fail to help every one of them. To be truthful, in the beginning you will all find it mighty hard to persist in chewing all your food to a cream. Mouthful after mouthful of food will get away from you when you are not thinking. This just goes to show how we are in the habit of bolting our food. At first people who Fletcherize or chew their food perfectly, usually lose weight. I most certainly did. I lost about twenty pounds because of it, but I was so well and felt so good I could almost have jumped over the North Star.

I know that, unfortunately, a lot of people with "nerves" have started to chew their food carefully and to eat sparingly, but the minute they found themselves losing weight they were frightened and quit. They went on carrying that ten or twenty or thirty pounds of flesh and all the time suffering the tortures of the damned just in order that they might keep it. But of what benefit are a certain number of extra pounds of flesh and how can a man explain such a senseless action?

The astonishing thing is that many physicians are willing to condemn a cure just as soon as they find the patient has lost a pound of beef. But as I said before, the primary mission of man in this world is not to raise beef. I do not find fault with the raising of beef in the feeding yards, but if beef must be raised let us confine the industry to the cattle pens and stock yards. Let us not worship it to the degree that we would rather live in hell than part with a few extra pounds that overload our own bodies.

Now just here I want it distinctly understood, as I have said before, that this text is primarily for _functional nervous cases_. Tubercular people belong to an entirely different class. They should live out of doors day and night and should, if possible, be treated at outdoor institutions established for such cases. But the individual with "nerves" will find what he needs and will find it abundantly if he has enough determination to take hold of it and keep at it.

On the part of many it will take all the determination they have to chew their food to a cream and always eat sparingly. In regard to the amount of food taken, judgment must of course be used. We all know that it is possible to eat too little. But you should always quit eating while you still feel you would like a little more. I know of no better guide than this to offer you. But I have observed that the person who eats slowly and chews his food to a cream never eats as much food as he would if he bolted it. It is just like letting a thirsty horse drink water. I remember, as a boy on the farm, when I led a very thirsty horse from the field to the water tank how rapidly he would swallow. If my father were with me, after the horse had drunk a while he would say, "Make him hold his head up." Frequently when I did so the horse would draw a long breath and drink no more. Had he gone right on drinking, as a thirsty horse will if you permit him to do so, he might have drunk twice as much as was good for him. And that's the way people eat. As a result the horse that drinks and drinks and drinks when he is very thirsty sometimes dies in a few hours. I have seen a horse die from drinking too much water and I have also seen people die in a few hours after a terrible gorge that they could not get rid of. Do you know that most nervous people have a way of sitting down to the table and eating until they are literally full? If you could take out the stomach of such a person and look at it, the sight would frighten you. And with good reason. For as a result of this habit many nervous people have dilated stomachs. But if they would correct their manner of eating there is usually enough tone in the muscular walls of the stomach to get it back to normal. I marvel again and again over how miraculously nature restores herself even after she has been terribly abused, if only she is given a chance.

I am certain that all human beings would be more efficient if they chewed all solid food to a cream and sipped all liquids slowly. The late Professor William James, the great Harvard psychologist, testified to the value of such a habit, as did a number of other distinguished Harvard professors. I regret that some physicians still hold out in their belief that it does no good although the evidence stands out as clearly before them as a tree along the roadside. But they are like the physician who some years ago declared that bathing was bad for people. I recall how hard we all bore down upon him, as he richly deserved, and how the Journal of the American Medical Association printed a short poem ridiculing him. I am quite certain that the members of the Regular school of medicine have progressed infinitely farther toward the cure of diseases than members of all the other schools combined. I do not say this simply because I happen to be a physician of the Regular school; I say it because a candid survey of what has been accomplished, and by whom, proves it. But as to diet, we have done little compared with what we should do. We have made no greater progress along this line because so many of us have been blinded by prejudice--the curse of the human race.

With regard to chewing all food to a cream, most modern writers on dietetics, while acknowledging that this super-mastication is useful, maintain that it does not increase the value of the food. But they err greatly in this, as we can prove in a very few words: If a certain amount of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates is bolted by a nervous man suffering from a breakdown, it will cause intestinal toxemia as a result of the bolted food, but if he chews the food to a cream it will be digested in a normal manner and will not cause gas in the stomach or intestines. The proper amount of food is absorbed and nourishes the man as it should. Now did not the thorough mastication of that food increase the value of the proteins, fats, and carbohydrates? The thing is a self-evident fact. In the first case a man takes food which quickly turns to a loathsome poison. In the second instance the same kind of food is so thoroughly mixed with the ptyalin in the saliva that whatever is eaten becomes of value as protein or fat or some other food element.

After many years of sad experience with this malady we call "nerves" I am convinced that the reason why people have this disease is because they are literally "food drunk." I have treated men who had been on an alcohol debauch and I know how terribly depressed they are after such a spree is over. It is exactly the same way with the pre-nervous people that break down. They sit down to a big meal and overeat. There is a temporary stimulus, just as in the case of the person who takes intoxicants, followed by that terrible mental depression that all who have suffered from "nerves" know. And because the individual with the "nerves" is overeating two or three times each day, he stays drunk with the poisons that form in his stomach and intestines. Such people over-assimilate the poisonous products of proteins, especially of sugars. Of course this may seem oddly stated because we would not want any absorption of the poisons in the intestines, but it is probable that nature can and does take care of a little of it there in the healthy individual.

It is perfectly absurd to say, as some physicians still continue to say, that no poisonous matter is ever absorbed in the intestinal tract. Give a child something that causes intestinal indigestion and see how quickly he has a rise in temperature. This fever is the direct result of poisons absorbed in the intestines. In the case of the nervous adult, however, this poison does not as often result in fever as it does in a horrible mental depression and a complete inability to perform any sort of work.

And so there seems no question but that this terrible malady we call "nerves," or a nervous breakdown in any of its many forms, is in a majority of cases the result of the wrong eating habits of the individual. The chewing of all food to a cream will go far toward curing the trouble, but in most cases this alone will not effect a cure. It would not have done so in my own case, although I did see much improvement as a result of that practice alone.

And here I want to say this: There are many who say they cannot eat acid fruits because of the distress they cause. Now if such people would always chew an apple, a pear, or other fruit to a cream, no distress would result from eating fresh fruit. But such people must follow in detail the diet I shall give farther on.

Now, facts cannot be stated too strongly. It is certain acid fruits will cause distress if you do not chew them to a cream. I would swell up like a toad if I ate only one apple hurriedly. I don't dare think what might happen to me if I ate three or four in that way. I might possibly find myself transformed into a human balloon and float away into space. But I don't eat apples that way--not now. Some who read these pages may think it very strange, yet it is quite true that there really are persons suffering with "nerves" who have not gumption enough to follow this simple rule of chewing all food to a cream. I despair of ever helping those people. They still continue to dispose of a big meal in fifteen minutes, and then insist they have chewed all their food carefully. I have had that thing happen right before my own eyes. Then think of their complaining that they cannot eat apples because they cause so much gas in the stomach!

One reason why a large number of such people are troubled with gas, even though they do chew their food to a cream, is because they immediately follow a meal with one or two cups of tea or coffee. Now please remember this: An individual afflicted with "nerves" has no business drinking either tea or coffee. He should let them both alone. Plain hot water is the very best drink in the world for a nervous person. If you want a drink after your meal drink a cup of plain hot water. And you should also drink a cup of hot water half an hour before breakfast. If you do not care for breakfast, and feel you do not need this meal, drink the hot water anyway. The victim of "nerves" should never drink during the meal but after it, if he must drink anything at all. He should also drink a pint or more of cold water between meals every day.

Now, another thing with regard to chewing all solid food to a cream. It has been proved over and over again in my own case and in that of many others, that in doing this the brain and muscles are both made stronger and keener for work, that those who chew their food in this way have much greater endurance, both mental and physical, than those who do not.

Today if I should relax my vigilance in respect to chewing my food I should soon go down again. But with this aid, which I now so easily employ, combined with exactly the right things to eat, I find I need have no fear. It has been ten years since my last breakdown and in that interval I have done the very best work and by far the hardest brain work of a lifetime. I do not believe people break down from overwork. You may think that a perfectly absurd statement. But I have good grounds upon which to base my belief. If nervous people would eat sparingly and chew their food to a cream, eating the foods I shall mention later on, I am confident they would rarely, if ever, break down.

It is certain that in the last ten years, with the greatest mental strain on me, I should have gone down again, and perhaps more than once, if I had not found what caused "nerves" and how to prevent it. In the meantime I have written ten or more books, and every writer, at least, knows what a nerve-racking profession writing is. In addition to all this mental labor I have gone right ahead with my medical practice. Surely there is balm in this particular Gilead.

But if you will not chew your food to a cream you need not expect to win the entire reward. And you must do this not only one day or one week or one month or one year, but all the days, weeks, months, and years that you may live. And, alas! I know only too well all the trouble well-meaning but deluded people who sit at the table with a nervous individual will make him when they discover how much time he is taking to chew his food. At first, because of the length of time I spent at a meal, such people thought I must be eating as much as a horse. But, here and there, for I was in many places, when people found out what I was doing, they would only courteously deride me for being so gullible about what they termed fads.

We are all well aware that the vast majority of Americans do not chew their food to a cream or anything like it. And there are those, therefore, who advance as an argument that because the majority do not there must be something wrong with the minority who do. Well, let us follow this out a little: Not so many hundred years ago everybody believed the world was _flat_. But their theory did not make it flat. And so, even though thousands of people who crowd our eating houses do bolt their food, that does not prove there is no danger in the practice. And they who do it are digging their graves with their teeth.

_Chew your food!_

III. RIGHT AND WRONG DIET FOR NERVOUS PEOPLE

"He who leads a sober and regular life, and commits no excess in his diet, can suffer but little from disorders of any kind."

--CORNARO

People who are the offspring of nervous parents and who have had a nervous breakdown should not eat commercial sugar, eggs, or animal food of any kind whatever. These statements may seem wholly unimportant to some people, but I realize what a tremendous bomb I throw into the camps of others when they read them. You see, for centuries people have believed meat and eggs to be the best of all foods; so when I make a statement like the foregoing, the effect is not unlike that which followed Columbus' statement that no matter what people believed, the fact was that the earth was round, not flat. From the very beginning it has not made a single bit of difference as to what physicians or anybody else thought; facts count. And no matter what we may think or how long we have thought it, facts go right on being facts just the same.

Sometimes, even after twenty years' experience, about once in two or three months--because there is nothing else at hand--I find myself eating a small bit of meat. This usually happens when I am on a lecture tour. But if I eat only a small slice of bacon at the evening meal I dream bad dreams and the next morning feel drowsy, heavy, and sluggish. Animal foods as well as eggs and commercial sugar poison all those born of nervous parents. I have proved the truth of this by my own case and by several years' observation of other cases.

Do your children have "night terrors"? You answer, yes. Well, let me tell you how to stop these horrors in the little ones. If you give them meat--and remember you should never give them pork--let them have a very small piece at noon, never at night. And they should never be permitted to have it for breakfast. Give the child his one small bit of meat at noon. For the evening meal give him some cereal with milk or cream, but no sugar. Give him all he wants of this special dish, but nothing else at that meal, and you will find his "night terrors" and moaning will cease.

I look back on most of the nights of my childhood with horror, for until I became a man I talked in my sleep and had the most horrible dreams. I used also to get up in my sleep and walk about the room. My parents were well aware of the fact that all of their eight children were poor sleepers, and of them all I was by far the worst. And, although it was innocently done, the food they were giving us was poisoning us. You don't need to think that in order to take poison you must have strychnine or arsenic. No, indeed you don't. We were fed exactly as hundreds and thousands of poor little ones are being fed now as this is being written. We were fed on meat, eggs, and fats, and when we became ill, friends round about us thought they were doing something real kind when they sent in a nice piece of fried rabbit or some celebrated golden brown fried chicken. But we vomited at the sight of the food--which was really our salvation.

I have two boys of my own. The elder, a sturdy chap not yet ten years of age, has to have clothes for a fourteen-year-old boy, and he is much stronger than any boy of his age he has ever met. The younger boy is now seven and his physical development is wonderful for a child of that age. Now these boys hardly know what an egg is. They never eat one. As to meat, I am certain that since they were born they have not eaten it on an average of once a week. They have eaten a little, but you will admit that eating meat not more than once a week, and often going weeks without a bit of it, certainly is eating very little. There have been times when they have not seen meat for three months.

Now, I don't eat as I do and have my children eat as they do just for a fad. I think nothing is more stupid and silly than for people to do certain things just because somebody else does them. We should all have good sound reasons for our actions in this world. We should all try our very best to use sound common sense. That's why I say that people who are the offspring of nervous parents should not eat animal food of any kind after they are twenty-one, and they should never at any time eat eggs. It would be far better for them if they did not eat commercial sugar. But I do admit that when some of these people get well by dieting, they are able to eat sparingly of all these things and still keep well. But some people can never eat them and I am one of the number.

I remember one summer about two years ago I was on a lecture tour for a Chautauqua Bureau, and it seemed that surely I got into the very worst eating places that summer that I ever had in my life. For three or four days I ate only eggs, as they seemed to be about the only food I could get besides bread and butter. At the end of the third day--I remember the time very well--when night came I could not sleep, and just as when I had one of my nervous breakdowns, that old feeling of inexpressible gloom began to settle over me. I knew instantly the cause of it, because twice before when I had purposely experimented with eating eggs I had had similar experiences. I immediately took a heavy cathartic and after having thoroughly rid myself of the poison I again slept well.

But I am not alone in this fight against the use of eggs for nervous people. John Burroughs said that eggs poisoned him, and I have talked with men of great wealth and great business ability who have reached the top by their own efforts, who have told me that eggs poisoned them.

Now I have found that for these nervous people animal food is a slow poison. Sooner or later it will do its work.

And just here I wish to say that there are some people who seemingly can eat almost anything and not suffer from so doing. Last summer I talked with Count Ilya Tolstoy, son of Leo Tolstoy, the celebrated Russian writer. The Count, who is also a lecturer, told me that he was obliged to have eggs and that he had eaten them all his life. He said his appetite was never satisfied unless he ate eggs. He is now past sixty, and apparently is strong and rugged. Now eggs no doubt are good for him. But right here is where infinite harm can be done to nervous people like myself. People who can eat everything--and among physicians seemingly there are many who can do so--will say to these poor sufferers:

"Why, it's all nonsense about things hurting you! Eat anything you want and all you want and then forget about it."

Physicians have said that to me and during the past twenty years I have heard them say it thousands of times to others.

Personally I do not believe in Christian Science--physicians of the Regular school do not believe in it; but do you know that when a physician says to a sufferer from "nerves," "It's all nonsense about what you eat hurting you; eat anything you want and then forget about it," that physician is fully endorsing Christian Science. He is telling the person to whom he is talking that there is no such thing as physical suffering. Of course, such a physician is nothing but a fool. Yet that's why so many of these people turn to Christian Science. Yes, that is exactly why they try it. It bolsters up a sufferer for a time just as contact with a magnetic and hopeful personality may for a time bolster one up. But such persons almost always go back to the sanitariums. "Nerves" is not a mental disease; that is, the seat of the trouble is not mental but physical, and the mental phase of "nerves" is only a symptom, or rather one of the symptoms of the disease.