duration than that of an ordinary meal-time.

My patient's bowels gave no hint of their locality until the eighteenth
day, when they acted with little effort; on the twenty-fourth day again
in a perfect way, and thereafter daily. The mind became ecstatic through
perfect relief from mental and physical depression; there were no wants
for other than those simple foods, and at the end of a month he left me
with new views as to Nature's power of selection to meet her needs and
of the vast utility of using both time and food to dissipate hunger.

The waste with most people is so small that the cost of the food, the
cost of time in preparation, could be reduced to a startling fraction if
the need could be actually known, and the pleasures of the palate
increased by an inverse ratio. There is no redemption for women on the
earth who have the care of kitchens except through simpler, smaller
meals--meals so very far apart that there shall be a maximum of the
hunger-sense of relish and the resulting maximum of power to convert
them into tissues instinct with life.

It may be that the waste is so very trifling, especially with
brain-workers, that one may be a vegetarian, fruitarian, or even an
eater of pork, without positive violence to practical physiology. There
is this further very practical consideration, that when Nature is so
fairly dealt with that she can speak in natural tones she will call only
for those foods easily available along geographical lines.

There is this to be said about fruits, that all those containing acids
decompose the gastric juice, as they all contain potash salts in union
with fruit acids. As soon as they reach the stomach the free
hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice unites with the potash, setting
the fruit acid free to irritate the stomach. There is never any desire
for acid fruits through real hunger, especially those of the hyperacid
kinds: they are simply taken to gratify that lower sense--relish.

The tropical fruits are without acids, and therefore are well adapted to
a class of people who have only the least use for muscle and brains.
Acid fruits can only be taken with apparent impunity by the young and
old, who can generate gastric juice copiously. Because of the general
impression that they are healthful and no tax, human stomachs are
converted into cider-mills at will, regardless of between meal-times. By
their ravishing flavor and apparent ease of digestion apples still play
an im