o have produced some wonderful
results in himself and others on extraordinarily small quantities of
food.

If the above tests had been made at once by a trained hand the error
involved in such results could not have escaped detection, and none of
these men would have endangered their lives. I myself examined the
layman in question and finding him not up to standard refused to
follow him. The writer has no difficulty in recalling at least a dozen
cases similar to those above mentioned which have been under his care
in the last twelve months, and the three above mentioned were none of
them under his care at the time of their danger.

What, then, must be our conclusions in reference to these and similar
facts of which it is only possible to give a mere outline here? I
suggest that they are:--

1. Food quantities are of extreme importance.

2. These quantities were settled by physiologists many years ago, and
no good reasons have since been adduced for altering them.

3. The required quantity is approximately nine or ten grains of
proteid per day for each pound of bone and muscle in the body weight.

4. Any considerable departure from this quantity continued over months
and years leads to disaster.

5. The nature of this disaster may appear to be very various and its
real cause is thus frequently overlooked.

I will say a few words about each of these except the first, which is
already obvious. The layman above mentioned asserted that he could
live on but little more than half this quantity, but the food quantity
really required is that which will keep up normal strength, normal
circulation, normal colour, normal temperature and normal mental
power. As we have got perfectly definite standards of all these normal
conditions, serious danger can only be run into by neglecting to
measure them.

It is also possible to tell fairly accurately the quantity of food a
man is taking in a day, and then, by collecting and estimating his
excreta, the quantity also out of this food which he is utilising
completely and burning up in his body.

You would say that no danger should be possible with all these
safeguards, and yet the above case history shows that of two trained
physiologists, members of the medical profession, one died at least
twenty years before his time, and the other was in great danger and
only recovered slowly and with difficulty. Another similar case came
to the writer suffering from increasing debility and