reat men who required little or no sleep. Within recent years the press
has frequently contained articles recounting the extraordinary fact that
a certain prominent inventor of this country lived daily on a mere
spoonful or so of food, and only slept a few hours now and then when
there was nothing else particularly to do. Such stories should be
accepted only on absolute proof, as, irrespective of their utter
improbability, one may observe that they are generally insisted upon in
and out of season with a pertinacity that would indicate that they were
conceived and are scattered abroad with the sole idea of impressing the
general public with what a marvelous and unusual person the individual in
question is. There can be no reasonable doubt that they are merely
evidences of childish vanity and puerile mendacity, and are only referred
to here for the reason that young persons, ignorant of the laws of
health, might attempt to emulate them, with results that could be but
disastrous. _Nothing so preserves youth, health, and good looks as a
sufficient amount of sleep, and it is pre-eminently the secret of long
life._

Reference will be made in the chapter on the Hygiene of Infancy to the
necessity of children sleeping as much as is possible. It will do no harm
to say again here that nothing is so essential for the proper development
of the body as sleep, _and that it is absolutely a crime to awaken a
child except under circumstances of absolute necessity._

_Precautions in Respect to Eating._--A sufficient amount of sleep, and a
proper quantity of digestible and nutritious food, thoroughly cooked and
carefully masticated, are the things which above all others are most
important for the maintenance of health. In the chapter on Foods, the
nutritive values and digestibility of the various articles eaten by man
will be discussed with sufficient thoroughness to instruct the reader as
to a wholesome dietary; it is, therefore, not necessary here to go into
the matter fully, but the subject is so important that a few general
remarks will not be out of place.

Eating should never, so far as is possible, be hurried. Nothing is more
important for the proper digestion of food than its thorough
mastication, and this can only be accomplished when sufficient time is
allowed for eating. It is not necessary that this be done to the extreme
advocated by some, but it is certainly of the highest importance that the
food be so thoroughly chewed t