Fletcherism: What It Is; Or, How I Became Young at SixtyFletcher, Horace
Science
Fletcherism: What It Is; Or, How I Became Young at Sixty
Fletcher, Horace
Mastication; Nutrition
In the first half of the experiment the men held their own on about
40 per cent. less food, computed by cost, and increased their
strength-endurance ability by something more than 100 per cent., with
the added felicity of feeling unusually fit all of the time, entirely
escaping the slack or sick spells they had been accustomed to, and
improving greatly in their general studentability, that is: power of
concentration, memory, mental comfort, profundity of sleep, etc.
During the second half of the experiment still more improvement was
secured owing to the readiness of the body to accommodate itself to the
wish by favouring the economies.
I have not a copy of the report at hand. It is included in the
publications of Yale University about 1905.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR, ON HIS SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY, PERFORMING FEATS
OF AGILITY]
[Illustration: AND STRENGTH WHICH WOULD BE REMARKABLE EVEN IN A YOUNG
ATHLETE.]
While all of the abundance of confirmatory evidence which has
accumulated since 1898 is valuable and gratifying, the verdict of the
unremitting observation since then is that the problem of nutrition is
always a personal one. After fifteen years of devotion to the study
of the head-end question, with due attention to the tell-tale excreta
and the product expressed in terms of energy and general comfort, I am
unable to predict what my body is going to want to-morrow in the way
of nutrition supply. I can say with some confidence that if I go on
doing as I have been accustomed to doing daily, and no shock of grief
or surprise intervenes to upset all calculations, I am likely to find
nutritive satisfaction as expressed by appetite among the foods that
are commonly agreeable to me.
If I am compelled or impelled to do a great stunt of walking or other
unusual exertion, or receive crushing news, all my present predictions
may be useless. The body itself, from the hair on the head to each
finger or toe-nail will know what it wants and will have given to the
caterer Appetite its requisition covering the need. In the meantime
each brain cell and all of the bones have not been neglectful of
their sustenance requirements, nor have they been backward in letting
Appetite know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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