Reading while eating is contrary to the above indications, unless perhaps it be something humorous, like Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” for instance. If we have the chance of choosing our neighbors at the dinner table let us rather sit next some one having the characteristics of Mark Twain than an undertaker or one who talks business. Besides the gastric juice the saliva also plays a very important rôle, as it contains a valuable ferment which facilitates the digestion of starch into sugar: the diastatic ferment. In order to have a good supply of saliva the food must be kept longer on the tongue, as the flow of saliva is best induced by the stimulation of the nerves of taste; so we must masticate longer, and move the food between the teeth and on the tongue for as long a time as possible, so that it will act on the nerves of taste. The secretion of the salivary glands under nervous influence is actuated in the same way as is that of the gastric juice. It is powerfully influenced by psychical impressions; for instance, by impulses coming from sight to the nervous centers and thence to the salivary glands, as can easily be seen by daily observation. If we offer a hungry dog a sausage we shall all witness an abundant flow of saliva, and the same may also be seen in man, and the German saying, “das wasser läuft im Munde zusammen,” may be literally true. The secretion of saliva can be provoked by much the same agencies as that of the stomach juice, but above all by mastication. This has the greatest effect on the flow of saliva, especially when accompanied by good appetite; in fact, we may say good appetite provokes the flow of saliva and mastication maintains it for a long time. We are thus able, by abundant salivation, to aid digestion wonderfully, especially with regard to starchy food, as the diastatic ferment of the saliva assists in transforming starch into sugar; otherwise such material would be rather difficult to digest, only depending then on the pancreatic and, perhaps, intestinal ferments. Another great advantage of thorough mastication is that the food reaches the stomach in the smallest possible pieces, perhaps in liquid form, and thus the stomach juice can reach it freely from all sides, whereby digestion is greatly facilitated. Not only the digestion in the stomach, but also the absorption of food transformed into a liquid from the intestines is much assisted by thorough mastication; while, as the result of insufficient mastication, as with fast eaters, the food may cause much greater work to the walls of the stomach. Being much less absorbed from the intestine it may irritate it as a foreign body until expelled by greater efforts of the intestinal walls. Long-lasting gastric and intestinal catarrhs may result from insufficient mastication.