Thorough mastication, on the other hand, means the reverse of these conditions. Almost incredible seem the hundreds of stories which we personally know to be true of men and women who have used Mr. Fletcher’s method as a means to enter the land of good health. In the opinion of Dr. Kellogg of Battle Creek, “There is no doubt that thorough mastication of food solves more therapeutic problems than any other thing that can be mentioned. It solves the whole question of the right combination of foods; solves the question of the quantity of foods, and the quality of foods, after one has got his appetite trained, his natural instinct trained; and when it comes to certain diseases like acidity of the stomach, hyper-acidity or hypo-acidity, dilation of the stomach or cirrhosis of the liver, or any other trouble with the digestive organs, if it does not effect a radical cure it makes it possible to tolerate a condition which otherwise would be deadly in a short time. It makes it possible for a patient to live a long time, enjoying comfortable health, where otherwise he would be crippled so that he could not live long at all.” Although we insist upon the fact that Fletcherism is simple, and easy, too, once you have really begun its proper use, yet we also know that there are many difficulties which the average man or woman has to face at the outset. Professor Fisher encountered these difficulties when experimenting with his students at Yale, and we are indebted to him for enumerating some of them. And these difficulties, like the habit of hasty eating itself, are products of our civilization. We mean such difficulties as, first, _conventionality_, or the desire to eat what others eat, and the unwillingness to appear different; _politeness_, the desire to please one’s host, or hostess, and eat “what’s set before you,” or to eat something which you know you don’t want or which you know is bad for you, because you fear to offend somebody or other who has cooked it, or bought it for you; _food notions_, or the opinion that certain foods are “wholesome,” and that certain foods should be avoided as injurious even if delicious to the taste; _narrowness of choice_, as at a boarding house table (and a great number of home tables!) which often supplies what is not wanted and withholds what is; and, lastly, habit, by which the particular kinds and amounts of food which have become customary through the action and interaction of the causes previously named, are repeated day after day, without thought.