Numbers of mastications as related to given quantities and kinds of
foods are no guide to be relied upon.
Gladstone's dictum, "Chew each morsel of food at least thirty-two
times," was of little value except as a general suggestion. Some
morsels of food will not resist thirty-two mastications, while others
will defy seven hundred.
The author has found that one-fifth of an ounce of the midway section
of the garden young onion, sometimes called "challot," has required
seven hundred and twenty-two mastications before disappearing through
involuntary swallowing. After the tussle, however, the young onion left
no odour upon the breath and joined the happy family in the stomach as
if it had been of corn-starch softness and consistency.
It will be difficult, without actual demonstration, to convince the
advocates of "Total Abstinence" that any whisky can be taken in a
seemingly harmless form, but it is true that thorough insalivation of
beer, wine or spirits, until disappearance by involuntary swallowing,
robs them of their power to intoxicate, partly because appetite will
_tolerate but little_.