Part 5

The idea of an endurance-test was suggested to the author by the ease with which he accomplished a century of miles on the Fourth of July, 1899. Being in Paris, and wishing to celebrate a most beautiful summer day and our National Holiday at the same time, an early start was made and the beauty of the day, the charm of the golden harvest fields lying between Paris and the Forest of Fontainebleau, and the noble forest itself, led us on and on until the cyclometer showed a distance, for the forenoon run, of slightly more than eighty kilometers (fifty miles) in a straight-away line from hotel and home in Paris. Two years before, fifty miles on bicycle, even when accustomed to riding daily during the craze for bicycling, which was then at its zenith, if done in one day, would have completely "done the author up" and would have called for several days of rest for recuperation. In the present case, however, no fatigue had yet been experienced and the day was still young.

The forest studio-home of friend Redfield, the Philadelphia landscapist, was found on the edge of the forest bordering the Seine at Brolles, and we went for a spin together and finally returned awheel to Paris. To make a "century run" in a day had always seemed to the author a feat for athletes and experts only, and when he found that he had made it without any inconvenience and was in no way painfully conscious of it next day, the ambition to see _what really could be done_ was born. It would give practical measure of the improvement due to an economical nutrition. It was known what the newly ambitious contestant for a record _could not do_ two years before, but it was now uncertain what he _might be able to do_ under changed condition of health even with two years' additional handicap of age; besides, it happened to be the half-century year of the author's life and a good time to jot down a record of a new start in life.

Reference to "economical nutrition" in connection with a full measure of recreation needs some explanation. To be economical means to most persons privation of pleasure. It is true that the economic standard attained by Luigi Cornaro had been maintained with ease by the author since the beginning of his experiments in the summer of 1898. This was not accomplished by trying to emulate Cornaro's example, but was reached by a method of taking food, and developed in the course of a special study of the economic natural requirements. The author ate _just what his appetite called for_, as nearly as circumstances of supply permitted, he ate _all that his appetite would allow_; enjoyed a gustatory pleasure that _had never been equalled_ under old habits of taking food, and was a distinct epicurean gainer by the economy learned and practised. But--and in this "but" lies the secret--the solid food had been munched appreciatively until it was liquefied and a strong Swallowing Impulse compelled its deglutition. The sapid and nutritious liquids were tasted as the wine tasters taste wine, as tea tasters taste tea, and as all experts test, or "Get the Good" out of, anything. Instead of being drunk down in a flood like water, which has no taste and no reason to stay in the region of taste, delicious country milk was sipped and tasted with the end of the tongue, where the best taste-buds are, until it disappeared by natural absorption. In this way the milk was fully enjoyed, largely assimilated, and, as the result of almost subsisting on bread and milk alone, at times, in response to the country appetite, the disproportionately excessive waste usually encountered when pursuing a milk-diet was not experienced; the digestion-ash (solid excreta) was extremely small and averaged only about one-tenth of the amount commonly wasted in the digestive process in ordinary habits of taking bread and milk hastily and carelessly.

It is significant that, while the quantity of food habitually taken was about one-third of the text-book normal-average prescription, the solid waste was _only a tenth_ of the usual amount, showing a much more economical digestion and a better assimilation. This possibility of a profitable and an agreeable economy was afterwards verified in the Venice experiments.

An æsthetic result was attained in connection with these experiments which cannot be too often advertised. All putrid bacterial decomposition was avoided in the process of digestion, and all sense of muscular fatigue was absent, even following strenuous and unusual exercise.

Instead of involving deprivation and asceticism, that mid-summer month in the Forest of Fontainebleau, occupied in making an _economy_ and an _endurance_-test, was a carnival of tempting plenty in the way of good food enjoyed to the full satisfaction of a healthy appetite. The endurance-test recounted in the letter following is evidence of the effect of such sumptuousness when approached by different methods of gratification. The powerful young artist who volunteers the story lived in the ordinary way and the aged reformer and research-dietetician, whom the young athlete paced, treated his food as recommended in this book.

EDWARD W. REDFIELD'S EVIDENCE

(In response to an invitation to recount his remembrance of the test after a lapse of four years.)

"CENTRE BRIDGE, PENN.

"MY DEAR MR. FLETCHER:

"My remembrance of the trip is as follows: On August 10th, 1899, I was spending the summer at Brolles, on the border of the Forest of Fontainebleau in France, when you came to visit me and enjoy the forest at the same time that you were conducting some chewing exercises and planning an endurance-test on bicycle on the fiftieth anniversary of your birthday. You were quietly living then according to the regimen with which your name is now connected and I was pursuing the ordinary habits of life which are common to artists abroad. The test was not only to determine the endurance of yourself, but to furnish a contrast with ordinary conditions of nutrition. We were eating at the same table, with the same food available to each, and were taking about the same amount of physical exercise. We turned in at night at the same time, as people are apt to do in the country, and it was my custom to rise at or before daylight. This habit of early rising came natural to me from my farmer education and habitual practice, and yet I never could surprise you early enough to catch you asleep. My first thought on getting out was to stop under your window and chant the refrain, 'Mr. Fletcher, are you up?' in imitation of the catch-line of a popular song of the year. Frequently the click of your typewriter warned me that you were already at work, but you were always awake and ready for 'anything doing.'

"I was, at the time, thirty years of age and thought myself in good condition and strong even for a farmer's boy; had previously done considerable long-distance road-riding, including League of American Wheelmen runs, etc., in competition with the 'cracker jacks'; and, to be frank with you, thought the agreement to pace you on that particular day a 'snap,' and I expected to lose you in the woods before long.

"The day was perfect, rather warm, as I remember it, and with little or no breeze. Our start was made at 3.55 A. M. (arose at 3.30). Course selected: To Fontainebleau and thence across country to Orleans, about one hundred kilometers distant from Brolles. I considered Orleans the limit and fully expected to have you return by railway from there.

"We were running at the rate of twenty to twenty-two kilometers the hour, and from time to time I would look back for Fletcher, but he was always at the same place at my rear wheel. A puncture delayed us for some fifteen minutes, but when the great cathedral bell of Orleans struck nine we were already there taking our first food of the day, coffee and crescent rolls.

"We again started, after a short rest, down the Loire, always holding the pace of twenty kilometers or better the hour in spite of the undulations. We stopped occasionally for water and milk, a single tumblerful of which satisfied both the thirst and the hunger of yourself.

"To me, the ride, at about this period, became a grind, but Fletcher seemed to get stronger and stronger and occasionally led the pace at a terrific clip. My condition, as we neared Blois, became more than bad with cramps in the legs. I had to dismount but couldn't stand up, and for awhile, I thought they would have to carry me home. I appreciated the kind inquiries sympathetically made and oft-repeated by yourself as to my condition, but had you known, at the time, how I was cussing your healthy appearance and impatience to proceed, you wouldn't have bothered me so much with your sympathy. After a partial recovery and the slow ride into Blois, six kilometers away, I left you, taking the train back to Paris, you having decided to go it alone for the rest of the day and thus complete the test.

"The arrival at Blois was about 1.30 P. M. (170 kilometers--a little above 100 miles) and took about nine hours, including stops, to accomplish. The next morning we received your dispatch from Saumur, nearly another hundred miles down the Loire, telling us that the run to that point had been completed by 10.10 P. M. that night, and Mr. Fletcher returned the next day as fresh and as strong as I had ever seen him at any time during the summer.

"Starting the day following with wife and daughter for a bicycle ride through France to Switzerland I accompanied your party as far as Geneva, and the only thing I couldn't discover was how a man who ate so little could travel so far and seem never to get tired.

(Signed) "Very sincerely,

"E. W. REDFIELD."

"Sept. 17th, 1903."

TEST COMPLETED

The experience of the author on that eventful fiftieth birthday, as registered in the successive sensations, is worthy of record.

In starting out in the cool of the morning as the day was dawning, and speeding through the beautiful Forest of Fontainebleau, the feeling of exhilaration was indescribable. An hour or two passed before there was any sense of unpleasantness attaching to the steady grind of duty which led us to pass reluctantly by inviting spots and scenes without stopping. In the beginning there was the keenest feeling of pleasure in the mere movement, without any exertion, over and among an enchanting landscape. It was what one might call a birdlike sensation of freedom of movement which bicycling and skating, among the common means of locomotion, alone give.

Redfield did not let up on the pace and I was determined not to beg for respite. Between fifty and sixty kilometers of distance only had been made when I felt that the day was not propitious for an endurance-test, and I fully expected to be compelled to return from Orleans leisurely in the afternoon and evening by wheel with only a slight addition to the century-run of the preceding Fourth of July accomplished. Before Orleans was reached, however, all sense of strain passed, and second-wind and second-strength had become installed for the day. When I left Redfield at Blois I felt stronger than any time before, and as eager to kick the pedals as when we started in the morning and as one always is prompted to do when one is filled with surplus energy. I had no objective point and was guided only by tempting roads and favouring breezes. The river road down the Loire was most promising at first, but a head wind sprang up and made a _détour_ the other side of Blois more tempting by argument of a fair wind that blew down one of the roads leading away from the river. For a time I made full twenty-five kilometers an hour, but the wind died out and I returned to the river road and reached Tours in time for the enjoyment of a magnificent sunset effect and a most appetising and satisfying _table d'hôte_ dinner. Before dining I jumped into a tub and had a good refreshing dip and a vigorous rub which made me feel like going out to take a walk or mount my wheel again. My appetite for dinner was not large, centred on a salad richly dressed with olive oil, and was quickly appeased; immediately after which I mounted my wheel again and proceeded down the beautiful road towards Saumur. My ambition was here raised to complete 300 kilometers and the distance to Saumur just about filled that ambition. I rode leisurely for a time after dining and then gradually increased the speed to about eighteen kilometers an hour, which brought me to my destination a little past ten, with a feeling of sleepiness that invited to a hasty falling into bed, but with surprisingly little or no sense of muscular fatigue. My cyclometer registered a little more than 304 kilometers, or 190 miles; not much for experts, under the conditions, to be sure, but a revelation of possibilities to a man of fifty who had once, not many years before, been denied life insurance on account of health disability. This was worth more than millions of money to me; and no one knows how much it will signify to the human family when the knowledge of a truly economic nutrition is attained and established.

I was bright awake at daylight the next morning and had the impulse to mount my wheel and see how "fit" I was in consequence of my exertion of the day before. This I did, and rode eighty kilometers (fifty miles) before breaking my fast at nine o'clock. I believe I could have ridden as far that day had the conditions been favourable. My weight, on return to my balances at Brolles, was reduced two kilograms (nearly five pounds), but a generous thirst for a day or two, and a slightly increased appetite put the loss back again inside a week even while riding my wheel daily on the way to Geneva.

Since reaching Italy, and abiding in Venice, there have been long periods when no systematic physical exercise has been indulged in. Once, after nearly a year of physical inactivity, I took with me an attendant and made an average of seventy-five miles a day in the mountain districts of southern Germany for observation of increase of food requirement during hard work. Neither muscular soreness, nor muscular fatigue, except the periodical weariness of sleepiness, were experienced as the result of the sudden change from the most restful environment to strenuous activity; and herein lies a physiological question that is far-reaching in its significance. It would seem that Appetite, in its normal condition, assisted in its discrimination by careful mouth-treatment of food, guards the body from excess and keeps it always "in training." The later experience at Yale University under Dr. Anderson and Professor Chittenden showed the same immunity from muscular disability, and has brought the question to good hands for solution.

The author has voluminous data relative to his work, but it is not applicable to any other person. Each person is a law unto himself and no two sets of conditions are alike. Treat your food as advised herein and get surprising new experiences for yourselves, is the advice and moral of the story.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

HEALTH, HARMONY AND HAPPINESS

Health, Harmony and Happiness are the natural heritage of man.

The human body is the most perfect piece of mechanism possible to imagine.

The human body is intended to nourish Health, maintain Harmony, and conserve Happiness.

* * * * *

The body machine is self-building or self-growing, self-lubricating and self-repairing.

A simple knowledge, only, is necessary for proper (preventive) care of the body machine.

All that Nature requires of man is to supply fuel preferred and, therefore, prescribed by Normal Appetite and to direct the energy generated along alluring lines of usefulness.

* * * * *

Nature requires no sacrifices and imposes no penalties for obeying her beneficent demands.

Natural Laws are easily comprehended if studied objectively.

Ill health, inharmony and unhappiness come only from disobeying Nature.

God (obeyed) is Only Good.

NATURE STUDY

Nature cannot be profitably studied alone through books.

Nature has a separate message for each intelligence.

Each body machine has peculiarities which the possessor alone can understand.

Object lessons, personally experienced or observed, are the best.

"Once seeing (or feeling) is worth an hundred times telling about," is a wise Japanese proverb; and it is true.

As the swinging pendulum taught Galileo, and the falling apple suggested to Sir Isaac Newton, the law of gravity, in like manner the modern electric power-plant teaches us, by analogies, suggestions useful in the study of ourselves--our own Mind Power-Plant.

OLD AND NEW

THE OLD IDEAS

The old religion condemned man, even though unenlightened, to perdition and saved him only through special dispensation.

The old education insisted on narrow formulas and tried to cram all mentality into prescribed moulds.

The old physiology presupposed disease and glorified pathology.

THE NEW STUDY

The new religion glorifies Love, stimulates Appreciation and preaches only Optimism.

The new pedagogy aims to discover the useful tendency with which each creature is equipped at birth and to cultivate this God-given inclination as designed by the Creator.

The new physiology studies Hygiene and assists Nature by securing Prevention to avoid the necessity of correction and cure.

SAFE HYPOTHESES

Assuming that Nature's intentions are only right, ill-health is unnatural.

If Nature's invitations, as expressed by Normal Appetite, are rightly interpreted, good health must result.

When there is bad health Nature has been disobeyed.

A REASONABLE CONCLUSION

If Physiology has failed to teach a way to maintain perfect health some of her hypotheses must be wrong.

If any of the hypotheses of Physiology are discredited any one of them may be doubted.[5]

[Footnote 5: Since this was written, the then accepted standards of human food requirements have not only been questioned but have been discredited and disproved. The great importance of mouth-work in the economics of digestion has been demonstrated and accepted.]

OUR NATURAL GUARDIANS

THE SENSES

GUIDING SUPPOSITIONS

The stomach and other hidden parts of the body have automatic functions independent of the will that perform digestion; these functions are beyond the scope of control, and hence means of preventing ill-digestion must be studied by the aid of the exterior sensations.

Sight, Appetite, Touch and Taste are the senses useful in selection of food and in the prevention of indigestion.

Sight and Appetite relate to invitation and selection, while Touch and Taste are discriminators and indicators of conditions.

Appetite and Taste are the sense functions that are most important to health, and hence they are the most important to study and understand. They are the guide in nutrition and the guard of the body machine--the Mind Power-Plant.

Smell also is an important aid in selection and discrimination and is an effective assistant of Appetite.

APPETITE AND TASTE ANALYSED

Appetite should be dignified and recognised as a distinct sense.

Normal Appetite is Nature's means of indicating her fuel and repair requirements for the Mind Power-Plant.

Study Normal Appetite and heed its invitation. It prescribes wisely. Its mark of distinction, to differentiate it from False Appetite, is "watering of the mouth" for _some particular thing_.

False Appetite is an indefinite craving for _something_, ANYTHING! to smother disagreeable sensations and frequently is expressed by the symptom of "faintness" or "All-gone-ness." [Vide the "A.B.-Z. of OUR OWN NUTRITION."]

Taste is the chemist of the body; of the Mind Power-Plant. More correctly, perhaps, it is the report of a chemical process relating to nutrition.

Taste is an evidence of nutrition. While taste lasts a necessary process is going on.

Taste should, therefore, be carefully studied and understood.

Both Taste and Appetite differ in different individuals and in the same individual under different conditions of thought or activity.

Taste is also dependent on supply of the mouth juices usually called saliva, and these differ materially in individuals, necessitating self-study, self-understanding, and self-care to insure prevention of indigestion and disease.

The most important part of nutrition is the right preparation of food in the mouth for further digestion.

The most important discovery in physiology is the relation of compulsory or involuntary swallowing to the right preparation of food for digestion.

* * * * *

Taste is evidence of nutrition.

Whatever does not taste, such as glass or stone, is not nutritious.[6]

[Footnote 6: Pure proteid or albumin is quite tasteless but is always accompanied by tasting substance, and separation of the proteid molecule from enveloping material is an important function of mouth-capacity in digestion.]

Taste is excited by the dissolving of food in the mouth, and while it lasts a necessary process of preparation for digestion is going on.

The juices of the mouth have the power to transform any food that excites taste into a substance suitable for the body.

Nothing that is tasteless, except water and pure proteid, only by distinct invitation of appetite, should be taken into the stomach.

If we swallow only the food which excites the appetite and is pleasing to the sense of taste, and swallow it only after the taste has been extracted from it, removing from the mouth the tasteless residue, complete and easy digestion will be assured and perfect health maintained.

* * * * *

NATURE'S FOOD FILTER

Nature has provided an Automatic Food Filter which, if rightly used, will prevent the introduction of any harmful substance into the stomach.

* * * * *

At the entrance to the throat there are certain muscular folds or convolutions, including the palate, which, when in repose, form an organ that is nothing less than a Perfect Food Filter. This filter has also automatic qualities which compel it to empty itself by the process we call "Involuntary Swallowing."

Involuntary swallowing is really compulsory swallowing; unless a voluntary effort to restrain it is set up against it. The real Swallowing Impulse is so strong that it is practically compelling.

The Food Filter, when rightly performing its protective function, is impervious to anything except pure water at the right temperature for admission to the stomach and to nutriment which has been properly dissolved and chemically converted by salivation (mixture with saliva) into a substance suitable for further digestion.

IMPORTANCE OF MASTICATION

If we masticate--submit to vigorous jaw action--everything that we take into the mouth, liquid as well as solid, until the nutritive part of it disappears into the stomach through compulsory or involuntary swallowing, and remove from the mouth all fibrous, insoluble and tasteless remainder, we will take into the body, thereby, only that which is good for the body.

* * * * *

The first thought that will arise in the reader's mind on perusal of the above declaration will undoubtedly be, "What! masticate milk, soups, wines, spirits, and other liquids; nonsense! That is impossible!"

It is not, however, impossible, and, furthermore, it is _absolutely necessary to protection against abuse of the stomach and possible disease_.

Liquid for adults, for anyone after the eruption of teeth, is an artificial and unnatural sustenance; something not taken into consideration when the human body was planned. Liquid food (drunk without mixing with saliva) is a sort of nutritive self-abuse, and the only way to avoid the ill effect is to give it the same chance to encounter saliva that the constituent ingredients would have had in a more solid state. For the importance of this see Dr. Campbell's able treatise on mastication reprinted from the London _Lancet_ in the "A.B.-Z. of OUR OWN NUTRITION."