ttle. But you should always quit eating while you
still feel you would like a little more. I know of no better guide than
this to offer you. But I have observed that the person who eats slowly
and chews his food to a cream never eats as much food as he would if he
bolted it. It is just like letting a thirsty horse drink water. I
remember, as a boy on the farm, when I led a very thirsty horse from
the field to the water tank how rapidly he would swallow. If my father
were with me, after the horse had drunk a while he would say, "Make him
hold his head up." Frequently when I did so the horse would draw a long
breath and drink no more. Had he gone right on drinking, as a thirsty
horse will if you permit him to do so, he might have drunk twice as much
as was good for him. And that's the way people eat. As a result the
horse that drinks and drinks and drinks when he is very thirsty
sometimes dies in a few hours. I have seen a horse die from drinking too
much water and I have also seen people die in a few hours after a
terrible gorge that they could not get rid of. Do you know that most
nervous people have a way of sitting down to the table and eating until
they are literally full? If you could take out the stomach of such a
person and look at it, the sight would frighten you. And with good
reason. For as a result of this habit many nervous people have dilated
stomachs. But if they would correct their manner of eating there is
usually enough tone in the muscular walls of the stomach to get it back
to normal. I marvel again and again over how miraculously nature
restores herself even after she has been terribly abused, if only she is
given a chance.

I am certain that all human beings would be more efficient if they
chewed all solid food to a cream and sipped all liquids slowly. The late
Professor William James, the great Harvard psychologist, testified to
the value of such a habit, as did a number of other distinguished
Harvard professors. I regret that some physicians still hold out in
their belief that it does no good although the evidence stands out as
clearly before them as a tree along the roadside. But they are like the
physician who some years ago declared that bathing was bad for people. I
recall how hard we all bore down upon him, as he richly deserved, and
how the Journal of the American Medical Association printed a short poem
ridiculing him. I am quite certain that the members of the Regular
school of medicine hav