continues to stimulate the gastric secretion; “and, there being no more proteid with which to combine, the secretion accumulates and leads to hyperacidity.”[24] Inasmuch, then, as inefficient mastication leads to an excess of starch in the stomach, we see how it may predispose to hyperchlorhydria and we shall presently see that there is yet another reason why it should do so. It will be gathered from the foregoing that thorough mastication is the most effective way of securing efficient starch digestion. This simple fact has been most strangely overlooked. Thus “van Valzah considers that not a little of the difficulty of the digestion of starches and cereals can be overcome by more thorough cooking. Patients who cannot eat potatoes after ordinary cooking are [he urges] often able to digest them very readily if they are doubly cooked before being served. Cereals, as a rule, should [he contends] be allowed to simmer all night and then be thoroughly cooked for a half hour in the morning before being eaten.”[25] This is an admirable illustration of the modern tendency to cheat the mouth of its proper work. A much more rational way of facilitating starch digestion in those who experience a difficulty in this respect is by efficient mastication. _Evils resulting from an insufficient quantity of alkali in the stomach._--I doubt if it is adequately realised what a large amount of alkaline saliva passes into the stomach as the result of prolonged mastication. Its presence there serves the useful purpose of prolonging the period of starch digestion within the stomach, while it further aids gastric digestion not only by exciting the secretion of gastric juice, but also by its influence on the reaction of the gastric contents; it can scarcely be doubted that the effect is on the whole one favourable to digestion in general. We have just seen that defective mastication may predispose to hyperchlorhydria by allowing an excess of pure starch to pass into the stomach, and I suggest that it may further operate in the same direction by cheating the stomach of its due supply of alkaline saliva. Now the saliva in this affection is apt, as was pointed out by Sir William Roberts, to be superalkaline, and for this reason he recommended his acid-dyspeptics to excite the flow of it by chewing gum-mastic with the object of neutralising the gastric hyperacidity. That relief can thus be obtained there can be no doubt; but it is surely more rational to get the patient to stimulate his salivary glands by masticating actual food, by which we secure the additional advantages accruing from its complete insalivation and comminution as well as from the reflex gastric effects. Actuated by these considerations, I have long been in the habit of recommending hyperchlorhydriacs to subject their food to prolonged mastication, this being, in my belief, the most rational and effective way of breaking the stomach of its vicious habit. In extreme cases we must insist that