ng foods, are assimilated
somewhat better when eaten raw, but this applies to no other foods
except sugars. Any success that has followed the teachings just
referred to undoubtedly rests purely on the fact that their
followers are instructed to live largely on raw eggs and milk, and
as the patient usually discovers in a short time that these two
foods agree with him while other uncooked ones do not, he naturally
eats them to the exclusion of the rest and where he takes a
sufficient quantity increases in weight and strength.

The idea that starches are more digestible when eaten raw could be
easily refuted by any intelligent farm-boy who recalls one or more
sad experiences from over-indulgence in raw sweet potatoes.

What shall we look upon as bread? Of course all such food-stuffs as are
commonly included within this designation are to be accepted; such as
wheat-bread, graham-bread, whole-wheat bread, biscuits, rolls, light
bread, bakers' bread, waffles and batter-cakes, rye bread, corn bread,
preparations of corn-starch, with which we should place those articles of
diet so commonly used in the south, usually called grits, hominy,
egg-bread, muffins, corn-meal cakes, potatoes, both sweet and Irish,
arrowroot and the so-called cereals or breakfast-foods, including
oatmeal.

Now which of these is the most wholesome? This inquiry cannot be answered
conclusively for the reason that the digestibility of this, as of other
foods, depends largely on the individual. For the sake of clearness the
various breads will now be considered in detail.

_Wheat-bread the Best._--It may be confidently asserted that well-cooked
and perfectly dry wheat-breads are to be regarded as being generally the
most digestible of all bread-stuffs. This is not dependent on any
inherent property in wheaten starch as a result of which it is acted upon
more readily by the juices whose office it is to render it fit for
absorption in the body, but is wholly due to the fact that breads of
wheat-flour may be made very dry and light.

As has been already explained, it is particularly necessary that starches
should be thoroughly soaked in saliva, and this can only be accomplished
when the bread is of such consistence that it must be chewed for a time,
and so dry that it will readily absorb the salivary secretion. The
writer, then, would advocate well cooked light-bread or bakers' bread, or
toast made fro