er.

He had been living a week on baked potatoes for experimental reasons
when I met him, and without experiencing any morbid sensations: a more
perfect specimen of physical health I never gazed upon. To all
dyspeptics who are willing to work for their health through pains and
patience, his little work, _Glutton or Epicure_, is strongly
recommended.

A dyspeptic from Vermont came to me who for ten years had eaten three
hearty meals daily, none of which had ever satisfied his hunger. He was
in a very low mental state when he came, and feeble in body: for fully
ten years both himself and physician had held the stomach accountable
for all its complainings, and with no thought of avoidable cause.

I put him on one meal a day, as there was still some power of digestion,
and with the following list for the daily bill of fare: baked potatoes
well buttered, bread and butter, beans dressed with butter, fish or lamb
chops, and rice or oatmeal only if strongly desired; all sugar foods
debarred, and no drinks except water as thirst called for it between the
meals. The constipated bowels were permitted their own times for action.
The mouthfuls were small and far apart--like dashes between words--not
less than forty-five minutes were spent in masticating. Very soon there
was a general rousement of new life in every way. His first surprise was
in an unwonted sense of relish and a complete sating of hunger long
before he had eaten the old-time amounts.

There was a fresh revelation to me in this, as I had not before been so
impressed that by slow eating the hunger-spell is also dissipated in
part by time, and hence there is much less danger of eating to excess.
Hunger comes in part from habit, and it is appeased, with or without
eating, with equal completeness. The hunger-habit can be trained to come
at almost any fixed time.

Not long since I read of a farmer who kept his horses in apparently
perfect condition on one feeding, and only at night: they had become so
trained that they had no desire for food until their labors were over.
At night they both ate and rested, and made good the waste of the day;
they were fully nourished and rested by morning, and could labor all the
forenoon without loss of energy diverted to digestion: at noon they
would rest--become strong for the labors of the day.

There can be no doubt, I think, that the strongest sense of hunger at
the regular eating-time could be dissipated by a fast not longer in