183, Calle del Capello Nero,
Piazza San Marco,
Venice, Italy.
Editor’s notes. (1) Confirmatory evidence of the correctness of the deductions made in this paper has begun to come in from many professional sources and notably from a famous child specialist who avers that children would follow the natural requirements in eating were it not for artificial food, bad example, and bad teaching.
(2) In a report of a paper read before the Société de Biologie, Paris, France, March 15th, 1902, by M. Max Marckwald, of Kreuznach, “On Digestion of Milk in the Stomach Of Full-grown Dogs,” the following appears: “Hence these experiments confirm those of Horace Fletcher and Ernest H. Van Someren on the importance of prolonged mastication” (translation). Referring, as the latter statement does, to mastication (insalivation) of liquid, it gives an important suggestion relative to some probable causes of uncertain or defective digestion in human nutrition.
THE CAMBRIDGE TESTS
[In connection with a report of the Cambridge Examination the writer wishes to acknowledge the interest and assistance of Dr. Francis Gowland Hopkins, head of the Physiological-Chemical Department of the Physiological Laboratory of the University; Dr. George H. F. Nuttall, in charge of the Bacteriological Section of the Pathological Laboratory; Mr. Sidney W. Cole, Mr. Robert Barrett, and Dr. Hubert Higgins, both for practical work in the laboratory and in serving as test-subjects. To Dr. Higgins so much is due that it is difficult to measure. Since our first meeting in Cambridge, Dr. Higgins has been unremitting in his study of the subject and in consideration of its application to human betterment. Having the altruistic temperament inborn and not yet smothered by disappointment, the good doctor has consecrated himself to the service of poorer humanity, and his inspiration in so good a cause is wonderful motive power behind the native desire to do good. The statement of Dr. Higgins’ experiences in pursuit of an Economic Nutrition is given in his own manner in the new edition of Glutton or Epicure, which is being published coincidently with this volume in the A. B. C. Life Series.
At the time we were in Cambridge, Dr. Hopkins and Mr. Cole had just published their paper in the Journal of Physiology (English), describing their isolation of the tryptophane element of the proteid molecule which had eluded chemists from the beginning. In tryptophane they found embodied the odourous indol and skatol which appear so offensively in the putrid decomposition of proteid. In the excreta of the test-subjects in our Economic-Nutrition-Inquiry these malodorous substances did not appear, and hence another question is opened up to investigation relative to the putridity of human excrement under ordinary conditions of carelessness, and the absence of putridity in the case of nutrition accomplished by aid of thorough buccal treatment of food preparatory to digestion.
It is a matter of interest, relative to the patience required in science, to state that Dr. Hopkins and Mr. Cole were fourteen months searching for the fugitive tryptophane element after they received their first clew to its whereabouts. When isolated, tryptophane masses in a substance having the appearance of silver, but not the solidity of that metal.—Horace Fletcher.]
EXPERIMENTS UPON HUMAN NUTRITION
Note by Sir Michael Foster, K.C.B., M.P., F.R.S.
In 1901 Dr. Ernest Van Someren submitted to the British Medical Association, and afterwards to the Congress of Physiologists at Turin, an account of some experiments initiated by Mr. Horace Fletcher. These experiments went to show that the processes of bodily nutrition are very profoundly affected by the preliminary treatment of the food-stuffs in the mouth, and indicated that great advantages follow from the adoption of certain methods in eating. The essentials of these special methods, stated briefly and without regard to certain important theoretical considerations discussed by Dr. Van Someren, consist of a specially prolonged mastication which is necessarily associated with an insalivation of the food-stuffs much more thorough than is obtained with ordinary habits.
The results brought to light by the preliminary experimental trials went to show that such treatment of the food has a most important effect upon the economy of the body, involving, in the first place, a very notable reduction in the amount of food—and especially of proteid food—necessary to maintain complete efficiency.