It is now five years since the first section of this crude little
announcement of a great physiological discovery was published; and
while the author has spent all the intervening years in unremitting
study of the subject of which it treats, with the heads of many of the
great physiological laboratories of the world assisting him with their
best facilities and information, as to the "reasons for things," there
is but small correction to make.
This does not imply that the "last word" upon the subject has been
herein stated, or that corrections may not be made as the study
progresses, but it means, that as an honest description of an effort
to get to understand the natural requirements in our own nutrition,
it is perhaps better put than the same author could now do; that is,
if intended for the enlightenment of persons whose curiosity has not
yet been excited, or whose interest in their nutritive welfare is still
young and inexperienced.
With regard to the statement that "whatever has no taste is not
nutritious," copied from a high educational authority, correction
certainly must be made. Pure proteid has no perceptible taste as
measured by taste-bud appreciation, any more than pure water has
specific taste, and yet who may not say that "water tastes good" when
one is really thirsty. Taste is a very subtle sense and is closely
allied to feeling. Things are often said to taste good because they
feel good in the mouth or to the throat as they descend to the stomach.
Regarding also the advice to remove from the mouth refractory substance
that the teeth and saliva cannot reduce to a condition to excite the
Swallowing Impulse. There is theoretical and actual nutriment in the
cottony fibre of tough lobster, or poor fish, or lean pork, and there
is good reason to believe that a strong digestive apparatus _can_ take
care of such tough substance _after a fashion_ and get nutriment out of
it. In the same way the hard, woody fibre of old nuts is the identical
material that was rich in juicy oils and proteid when the nuts were
fresh, but if swallowed in the toughened condition that age brings to
nuts, it is but slowly reduced in the stomach and intestines and only
at enormous expense. If putrifactive bacterial decomposition has to be
resorted to to get rid of the stuff the process is then poisonous as
well as difficult.
According to physiological authority which we must, for the moment,
accept, proteid is a vitally-necessary material and we cannot afford
to waste it. Our life depends upon proteid to replace the waste of
muscular tissue which occurs with every movement, but when even
good proteid is found by the mouth to be in a form that is too
refractory for the teeth to handle, it is poor policy to send it on
to the toothless stomach and intestines for the accomplishment of the
reduction. If the mouth cannot handle what its guardian senses don't
like, it can spit it out and get rid of it immediately; but if the
stomach or intestines are afflicted with something that is harder than
they can easily take care of, they have to call in the assistance of
bacterial scavengers whose method is poisonous decomposition, and whose
fee is putridity of odour penetrating the whole system and issuing at
every pore, making Cologne water a large commodity even in so-called
Polite Society.
There are discernible in the mouth distinct senses of discrimination
against substance that is undesirable for the system. If the mouth
senses are permitted to express an opinion, their antipathy is easily
read. It is far safer to spit out what the natural impulse of
swallowing hesitates at, or fails to suck up with avidity, than it is
to force a swallowing to get rid of it simply to satisfy a prudish
"table manner" objection. To avoid "impolite" condemnation we really
make "hogs of ourselves" "on the sly," and vulgar slang alone is
appropriate to express the shameful confession.
As a matter of fact, if one faithfully practise mouth thoroughness in
connection with all his food for a term of a few weeks, he will find
that the appetite ceases to invite the sort of things that have to be
spit out. The appetite gradually but unfailingly inclines to foods that
are profitable all the way through, and in which there is little or no
waste. This revelation alone shows a delicate usefulness of Appetite
that has escaped students of the human senses.
In the matter of the insalivation of liquids, evidence continues to
accumulate to show that in the present prevalence of liquid or soft
foods lies the great danger to the digestive economy of man. Through
them, mouth work becomes neglected, and the tendency is to force the
stomach and intestines to take on the work of the powerful mouth
muscles and glands in addition to their own work, and in the straining
that ensues trouble begins.
There is _now_ no doubt but that taste is evidence of a chemical
process going on that should not be interrupted or transferred to the
interior of the body. Tried upon milk for so long a period as seventeen
days, during which nothing was taken but milk, not even water, thorough
insalivation secured more than a twenty-five per cent economy in actual
assimilation; not alone with one subject, but with no less than five
persons, living on milk from the same cow, and all of whose strict
test history was recorded. It seems also to be the only way in which
a practically odourless solid excreta is obtainable, and this is
certainly evidence worth considering and a desideratum worth striving
for.
While it is an excellent thing to give thorough mouth attention to
anything taken into the body, to solids alone, even if liquids are
neglected, the best economic and cleanly results are only obtained when
all substances, both liquid and solid, are either munched or tasted out
of existence, as it were, and have been absorbed into a waiting and
willing body; a body with an _earned_ appetite.
With liquids one simply has to do as the wine-tasters and the
tea-tasters do. Small sips are intaken and the liquid is tasted between
the top of the tongue (the spoon end) and the roof of the mouth until
all the taste is tasted out of it, and the Swallowing Impulse has
claimed it. This is by no means a disagreeable task, and as soon as
the unnaturally acquired habit of greed and impatience is conquered,
the reward of following this natural requirement is very great and
increases with practice. Five years of experience has taught the author
that a really keen appreciation of taste and its delicacy of possible
refinement is not known to persons of ordinary habits of life. The
pleasure which comes with conformity with the natural requirements is
truly Epicurean and disregard of them is as surely gluttonous.
The author still claims discovery of a distinct physiological function
which he first named "Nature's Food Filter." Van Someren preferred the
name of a "New Reflex of Deglutition." It is, in fact, the "Natural
Swallowing Impulse," _invited only_ by food mechanically and chemically
_prepared_ for passing on to the interior, call it by whatever name you
like or may.
At the time this little book was first published, the only note in
favour of giving special attention to "buccal digestion," that had been
sounded, was the advice of Mr. Gladstone to his children, "Chew your
food thirty-two times to each mouthful," or words to that effect. The
"Masticate well" prescription of the physician when given at all, had
meant little or nothing, to either the patient or to the prescriber,
except that one must not swallow hard food whole.
For two years after its publication little heed was given to the
suggestion because the author happened not to be a medical man, but,
finally, the reserve of indifference was broken, first by Dr. Joseph
Blumfeld, in a review of the book in the London _Lancet_, and soon
after by Dr. Ernest Van Someren of Venice, Italy, an English physician
residing and practising in Venice. Dr. Van Someren's interest and
experience are best stated in his _own words_, as follows:
THE PERSONAL "CASE" AND "ENDORSEMENT"
OF
DR. ERNEST VAN SOMEREN
AN
ENGLISH PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON, PRACTISING IN VENICE, ITALY
"MY DEAR MR. FLETCHER:
"It would be almost _àpropos_ to send you, as an endorsement of
your principles, the dictum of the ragged and dirty tramp in the
advertisement of Pear's soap. I would have to amend it slightly and
say: 'I used your {principles} three years {soap} ago; since when I
have used no other.' I say '_almost àpropos_' advisedly, for, while
the soap claims to keep the outer man clean, the practice of your
principles justly claims to keep the inner man sweet and clean, so
lessening the need to cleanse the outer man!
"A well-known English surgeon (I think Sir Wm. Mitchell Banks)
recommends physicians and surgeons to take a leaf from the book of
patent-medicine vendors, and make their patients testify to their
successful treatment. I will take the hint and give you, as my
'doctor,' a testimonial of how personally I am benefited by your advice.
"Three years ago, when I first met you, though under thirty years of
age, and myself a practising physician and surgeon, I was suffering
from gout, and had been under the _régime_ of a London specialist
for the treatment of that malady. Though vigorously adhering to the
prescribed diet, I suffered from time to time. My symptoms were
typical--paroxysmal pain in my right great toe and in the last
joints of both little fingers, the right one being tumefied with
the well-known 'node.' From time to time, generally once a month, I
suffered from incapacitating headaches. Frequent colds, boils on the
neck and face, chronic eczema of the toes, and frequent acid dyspepsia
were other and painful signs that the life I was leading was not
a healthy one. Yet I was accounted a healthy person by my friends,
and was, withal, athletic. I fenced an hour daily, took calisthenic
exercises every morning, forcing myself to do them, and I rowed
when I obtained leisure to do so. In spite of this exercise and an
inherent love of fresh air, which kept all the windows of my house open
throughout the year, I suffered as above. Worse still, I was losing
interest in life and in my work.
"In one or two conversations you laid down your simple principles of
economic nutrition. You told me that my food ought to be masticated
thoroughly, until taste was eliminated, and that (my) liquid
nourishment, if taken, ought to be similarly treated. You also told me
that, taking food in this way, I might, without fear of consequences,
give free rein to my appetite. To shorten my story, I'll say that in
three months after the practice of these principles my symptoms had
disappeared. Not only had my interest in my life and work returned,
but my whole point of view had changed, and I found a pleasure in both
living and working that was a constant surprise to me. For this, my
dear Mr. Fletcher, I can never repay you. My only desire has been and
is, to try and do for others in my practice what you did for me.
"Now I have since that time had occasional colds, headaches, and gouty
pains; but, whereas formerly I could not explain their causes, I can
now invariably trace them to carelessness in the buccal digestion of my
food, and can soon shake them off. So much for my testimonial. Now for
other matters.
"I do not know what may be the extent of the claims you are advancing
in regard to the benefits accruing from the practice of your
principles. If you, as you in justice may, claim even the widest
benefits as surely following the practice of these principles, many
will relegate these claims to the limbo where all such 'panaceas' are
soon forgotten. They will err greatly if they do so. The seemingly
simple procedure of insalivating one's food most carefully is not
calculated to impress people with the fact that great permanent benefit
follows. The subtlety of the changes that occur is due to the greatly
increased action of a vital process, _i. e._, of the admixture with
the food-stuffs of saliva, in such quantities as to alter the chemical
reaction of the initial stage of digestion. This initial change
causes a consequent change of all the processes following it, and a
change also in the final products of the entire process of digestion;
the greatest change being, perhaps, the elimination of last-resort
digestion by the intestinal flora (digestion by decomposition caused
by bacteria), and consequent elimination from the body, of the toxins
they produce. The life of an organism has been defined as 'the sum of
all those inter-actions which take place between the various cells
constituting the organism and their several environments.' (Harry
Campbell.) The final products of digestion are absorbed into the blood
stream, and go to form part of the 'several environments' of the
cells. The individual cell, the various groups of specialised cells,
such as the brain, nerves, muscles, bones, etc., in short, the whole
organism is beneficially influenced and made more resistent to disease
by the purity of a blood stream that no longer contains the toxins of
bacterially digested food.
"The further investigation of your discovery by those competent will,
I am confident, result in such a simplification of the rules for a
healthy life that the medical profession, at present forced by a
lack of knowledge of the vital processes of nutrition to base their
treatment on the veriest empiricism, will then be able to teach all and
sundry how to live. At present, all we can do is to treat and perchance
cure for a time certain symptoms, allowing the patient to return
afterwards to a mode of life that is really responsible for his malady.
'Disease is an abnormal mode of life.' (Harry Campbell.) The three
factors in its causation are:
"(_a_) Cell structure.
"(_b_) Internal cell environment.
"(_c_) External body environment.
"Heredity determines, to a very large extent, our cell structure, and
consequently our body structure.
"Sanitary science regulates our external body environment as much as
the artificial and noxious habits of so-called civilisation will allow.
The mental and physical external body environments have also their
effect on the organism.
"Your discovery of simple rules for an Economic Nutrition will control
the internal cell environment. In doing this, the predisposition to
disease is materially affected. The internal cell environment being
free from toxic material, and the cell itself better nourished, the
cell's resistance to disease is increased, the possible source of
disease being limited to the external body environment.
"In concluding this endorsement I can promise, to each and all who may
intelligently practise the principles of Thorough Buccal-Digestion, a
complete knowledge of their body's food requirements, or, as a patient
of mine tersely put it, they will learn the way to 'run their own
machines.'
"Yours ever,
"ERNEST VAN SOMEREN."
* * * * *
Dr. Van Someren and the author, assisted by Dr. Professor Leonardi, of
Venice, as Consulting Physiological-Chemist, and several colleagues,
pursued some experiments during the winter of 1900-1901; and Dr. Van
Someren read a paper on our work, entitled, "Was Luigi Cornaro Right?",
before the meeting of the British Medical Association the following
August.
The paper is too long to reprint here but it will be found in full in
another volume, entitled, "The A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition."
The following "Note" by Dr. Professor, Sir Michael Foster, K.C.B.,
M.P., F.R.S. etc., is a further link in the chain of development of
appreciation of the need of serious attention to the science of human
nutrition excited by this initiative. (Dr. Foster is the Permanent
Honorary President of the International Congress of Physiologists.)