With these statements before us, we can readily picture for ourselves the initial results following the ingestion of starch-containing foods properly cooked; and it may be mentioned here that the cooking is an essential preliminary, for uncooked starch cannot be utilized in any degree by man. With the mind in a state of pleasurable anticipation, with freedom from care and worry, which are so liable to act as deterrents to free secretion, and with the food in a form which appeals to the eye as well as to the olfactories, its thorough mastication calls forth and prolongs vigorous salivary secretion, with which the food becomes intimately intermingled. Salivary digestion is thus at once incited, and the starch very quickly commences to undergo the characteristic change into soluble products. As mouthful follows mouthful, deglutition alternates with mastication, and the mixture passes into the stomach, where salivary digestion can continue for a limited time only, until the secretion of gastric juice eventually establishes in the stomach-contents a distinct acid reaction, when salivary digestion ceases through destruction of the starch-converting enzyme. Need we comment, in view of the natural brevity of this process, upon the desirability for purely physiological reasons of prolonging within reasonable limits the interval of time the food and saliva are commingled in the mouth cavity? It seems obvious, in view of the relatively large bulk of starch-containing foods consumed daily, that habits of thorough mastication should be fostered, with the purpose of increasing greatly the digestion of starch at the very gateway of the alimentary tract. It is true that in the small intestine there comes later another opportunity for the digestion of starch; but it is unphysiological, as it is undesirable, for various reasons, not to take full advantage of the first opportunity which Nature gives for the preparation of this important foodstuff for future utilization. Further, thorough mastication, by a fine comminution of the food particles, is a material aid in the digestion which is to take place in the stomach and intestine. Under normal conditions, therefore, and with proper observance of physiological good sense, a large proportion of the ingested starchy foods can be made ready for speedy absorption and consequent utilization through the agency of salivary digestion.