EDITORIAL.

Books for review, exchanges and contributions-the latter to be contributed to the GAZETTE only, and preferably to be type written-personal and news items should be sent to THE NEW ENGLAND MEDICAL GAZETTE, 80 East Concord Street, Boston. Subscriptions and all communications relating to advertising or other business, should be sent to the Business Manager, 40 Mt. Pleasant Avenue, Roxbury, Mass.

F. W. COLBURN, M.D.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

JOHN P. SUTHERLAND, M.D.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS:

C. T. HOWARD, M.D.

W. H. WATTERS, M.D.

Reports of Societies and Personal Items should be sent in by the 15th of the month previous to the one in which they are to appear. Reprints will be furnished at cost and should be ordered of the Business Manager before published, if possible.

THE PSYCHIC MADE PRACTICAL.

Nothing in the history the world is hourly writing is surer than the constantly increasing employment of things psychic, for practical uses. He is belated indeed who ridicules the potency of unseen forces in accomplishing every-day ends. The legal profession today recognizes hypnotism as a possible and punishable criminal agency. Regular medicine has utilized hypnotism for an appreciable time, in many directions, and with demonstrable success, as a therapeutic agency. Irregular medicine has practitioners numbered by the thousand, who minister to patients numbered by tens of thousands, through purely psychic methods. In the commercial world, very hard-headed and material men spend very material dollars, to be taught the not very commendable lesson of how to mentally coerce desirable customers into purchase of their wares. Up and down the scale of life and work the note of the psychic sounds, from year to year, more often and more dominantly.

It is an odd and rather ironic fact that the practical utilization of psychic forces has been most slowly accepted by theological workers. It is perhaps unkind to surmise that many theologians may feel themselves aggrieved to see the powers of the unseen working in ways neither mapped out nor directed by orthodox theology. Be that as it may, it is only at a very recent date that the theologians have begun to recognize and seek to practically utilize psychic forces. Two very recent examples of this, are striking enough to be worth noting. First, at a recent gathering of the clergy of the Episcopal Church, there was seri

ously discussed and measurably approved, the idea of priestly ministrations to physical disease, by anointing with oil, prayer and exhortation. Second, that at a largely attended meeting, held at a highly conservative Boston church, in the very near past, and presided over by two bishops and other distinguished clergy, there was listened to with profound and approving interest, an address by Prof. Quackenbos of Columbia University, on hypnotism as an uplifting force, in practical life. How closely the healing of the soul may march with the healing of the body in modern thought, is most strikingly suggested by the following extracts from Dr. Quackenbos' address:

"Unquestionably the most important advance made by psychology during the 19th century was its assumption of a practical character. In no direction has this salutary evolution been more conspicuous than in the recent utilization of psychotherapeutics along the lines just discussed. And the end is not yet.

"In educational work the value of suggestion can hardly be overestimated. Child study, from the standpoint of its application, is a duty of the hour, which can no longer be excusably ignored either by teachers themselves or by those whose life work is the preparation of teachers for a profession demanding the highest intelligence and involving the greatest responsibilities. Not only may dull minds be polished, unbalanced minds adjusted, gifted minds empowered to exploit their talents, but the educating intellect of the school child may tread that roya! road to learning which ancient philosophers sought for in vain; the matured mind of the scholar may be clothed with perceptive faculty, with keenest insight, tireless capacity for application, unerring taste; and the imaginative mind of the painter, poet, musician, discoverer may be invested with creative efficiency in the line of ideals that are high and true. Judicious suggestion accomplishes the output of indwelling faculty, and the lesson of hypno-science here is a lesson of man's susceptibility to limitless progression.

"I firmly believe that as an agent of physical cure hypnosuggestion will shortly come to be universally employed by trained nurses for the purpose of carrying their patients through the crises of disease. It will be used by physicians for intrauterine inspiration, the character of the forming child being determined by antenatal suggestion. The possibilities of physically, rationally and spiritually elevating the human race through this channel become infinite."

THE VINDICATION OF "FLETCHER-ISM."

A very interesting detailed account of Yale's recent dietetic experiments in "Fletcher-ism"-i. e., the very thorough and complete mastication of all food, before swallowing it,-is found in a recent issue of the Boston Transcript. These experiments were carried on under strictly scientific and well-controlled conditions. They were supervised by Prof. Irving Fisher, who holds the chair of political economy at Yale; and whose object in conducting them was to further his study of working power in relation to several factors; but especially in relation to diet. He was assisted by Professors Chittenden and Mendel of the Sheffield Scientific School; and by the director and attendants at the Yale Gymnasium.

The experiments covered a period of nearly six months, dating from mid-January, 1906. Their object was to test the soundness of Mr. Horace Fletcher's theory, that thorough mastication of food results:

A. In an intelligent regulation of appetite, so that appetite will demand only the amount of food actually required to maintain the body in perfect health.

B. In a gradual decrease of the amount of food consumed and desired.

C. In a lessened appetite for flesh foods.

D. In an enormous increase in the powers of physical endurance.

The experiments in question seem to have almost startlingly established the claims put forward by Mr. Fletcher. They were conducted under the fairest possible conditions. The men making the experiments were students, who entered upon them not only voluntarily, but with eager interest; men of trained intelligence and powers of observation. No artificial conditions were created; and thus the results obtained were notably of practical, no less than scientific value. The every-day conditions of life, with the men experimenting, were absolutely unchanged. No restrictions as to amount or character of food was laid upon them. They were simply pledged to thoroughly masticate all food consumed by them. And the results of this single new habit of life, were exactly what Mr. Fletcher claims they will be, wherever thorough mastications obtain; exactly the results noted above; with, as the most amazing of the list, an increase

of 90 per cent., in the powers of physical endurance on the part of the men experimenting, in the scant six months covered by the experimentation.

We quote from the Transcript's account, written by Mr. Hyman Askowith, the following interesting details of the experiments in question:

.

"The men were given a wide range of choice, the menu including fruits, nuts, cereals, puddings and pastry, vegetables, milk, meats, etc. Each man chose his own food out of the menu for the day. The men were especially warned against any conscious effort to reduce the amount of food; they were to chew and satisfy the appetite, nothing more. . . Careful and accurate record of the amounts of food eaten, and the proportions of the food elements was kept for each man each day. The food was weighed in the kitchen and served in standard portions of a certain weight, and the men merely recorded the number of portions eaten..

In viewing the results of the experiment, the first point to determine was the change in quantity of food, especially in flesh and proteid foods. The figures showed that during the experiment there had been a distinct though gradual dentency, increased in the second half, toward reduction in the quantity of food, particularly of proteid and flesh foods as well as in the quantity of liquids of all kinds, tea, cocoa, coffee and even soups. During the first half, when the men were entirely free from suggestion, the total amount of food per day gradually fell about 10 per cent., the proteids 15 per cent., and the flesh foods 40 per cent. At the end of the entire experiment, compared with the beginning, the daily total had fallen about 25 per cent., the proteid 40 per cent., and the flesh foods over 80 per cent., or to about onesixth of their original amount. . . . Nothing could be so completely convincing as proof of Mr. Fletcher's theory that the true standard of food economy can be reached unconsciously, without prescription or artifice of any kind, by the practice of thorough chewing.

The body weights of the men suffered a very slight reduction by the end of the experiment. Aside from the influence of the season, the loss was due almost entirely to overwork from college examinations. As the remaining figures show, this slight loss of weight was of no account, so far as endurance, etc., was concerned; and a trifling loss of weight may be of benefit to the body.

Loss IN STRENGTH, GAIN IN ENDURANCE.

Gymnasium tests of two kinds-tests of strength and tests of endurance-were made at the beginning, the middle and end of the experiment. The tests of strength show that during the

first period there was a slight increase in strength, and during the second period a slight fall; the strength of the men thus remained nearly stationary throughout the experiment. The slight losses were due, as in the case of the body weight, to overwork; the two men whose losses of strength was greatest, not only overworked during the entire period of the experiment, but had, just before coming to the last test, been through the most exhausting and sleep-robbing week of all. . . .

These negative figures leave us unprepared for the wonderful showing made in the endurance test-the leading feature in the results of the experiment. In spite of many unfavorable factors, and after making all allowances, the tests showed a net gain of more than 90 per cent. in endurance. This may seem unreasonable in comparison with the strength tests, but it merely demonstrates the more clearly, as Professor Fisher says, that the increase in endurance was in increase in endurance per se, and not in any degree due to an increase in strength. Strength and endurance are entirely distinct and should be separately measured. The strength of a muscle is measured by the utmost force which it can exert once; its endurance by the number of times it can repeat a given exertion well within its strength.

Seven simple gymnastic tests of physical endurance were employed. . . . At the end of the experiment, the entire series of tests given in January was repeated.

Elaborate records were made of every test for all of the men . A critical analysis of all the records proves beyond a doubt that during the first half of the experiment the men had improved over 50 per cent. in endurance; and that at the end of the entire experiment the improvement was at least 90 per cent. This was the clear result of five months of thorough chewing.

The men kept diaries in which they recorded their sense of increased endurance and other benefits received, and several expressions of the various men are worth quoting: 'I am convinced that the increased endurance must be due to diet and manner of eating; all other factors that I can think of are unfavorable rather than favorable to more endurance. I am convinced to the extent that I shall certainly continue Fletcherizing and using a low proteid diet.' 'During the spring,' writes another, 'I have not felt that “all-gone" feeling, which has usually appeared in the past." "The greatest benefit of the experiment to me personally," writes a third, "is that last year I broke down in the spring term and this spring I kept up my work and health in a much better condition.”

In addition to the test of physical endurance, a mental test was also provided. This consisted of adding specified columns of figures as rapidly as possible, the object being to find out whether the rapidity of performing such work tended to improve during the experiment. The time during which the addition was performed and the number of errors committed, were recorded in