"As to my appetite, during the experiment, I can truly say that, though I never in my life came to the table with a better appetite, I was never better satisfied with my meals when they were finished. After the first three weeks, I had little or no thirst. Nor had I, so far as I now recollect, any desire to eat between meals. In truth, food, except at my meals, was seldom thought of. But, on this subject, my mind had been made up at the outset. I will only add, on this point, that my bread, during the whole time, tasted better, far better, to me than the nicest cake formerly had. "As regards perspiration, my skin, after the first three or four weeks (during which it was dry and hard), became soft and moist. When I used much exercise, I perspired very freely. My sleep was sound and satisfying. Indeed, the whole "machinery," so far as I could judge, worked admirably during the latter part of the experiment, and at its close I could perform a good day's work at my trade. "I was about thirty years of age when I made the experiment. I am now above fifty. I have not always, nor indeed generally, been as rigid in my habits since that time. In one instance, however, I worked two weeks on a ship, at "sheathing," on but five ounces of food a day, and was never better in my life, and never felt less fatigue at night. In fact, I felt much better at night than I did in those instances in which I indulged myself in eating two pounds of food a day. "During a part of the time of my principal experiment, I kept a grocery. On leaving this, I established a Graham boarding-house, in which I continued for one year. "About a year after the termination of my experiment, I had occasion, for about three weeks, to work in a bake-house, where the mercury in the thermometer was at 90°. While here, I ate twelve ounces of dry bread and two apples a day, and drank nothing. Yet I perspired as freely as ever, nor did I perceive any difference in the quality or the quantity of any other secretions or excretions." The reader will take notice that Mr. Robinson's principal or starvation experiment, lasted five months, or one hundred and fifty days. He will also observe that he left off the experiment with nearly or quite as much flesh as he had when he commenced, and with a very great increase of muscular strength. The above statement was so remarkable, that not a few medical men and others regarded it as a hoax. "To live on three ounces of bread, and yet be in daily employment," they said, "even though such employment were of a kind likely to call for very little muscular effort, is altogether incredible. And what renders the whole so much more unlikely, is, the yet more extraordinary assertion, that, part of the time, he gained more in weight than the whole amount eaten and drank."