The New Glutton or Epicure. Fletcher Horace
with interest future developments. I am going to get our students interested in it. If you feel disposed to do so, I shall be glad to have you make out a little line of experiments which will tally with the experiments which you have been conducting, so the results may be compared.
"I have in hand a translation of Cornaro's work which I have been thinking of publishing. It occurred to me that perhaps you would be able to write a little chapter for this work, or an introduction. I am going to get it out in nice shape, and I trust it may be the means of doing good in inclining those who read it toward a simpler life. I am greatly interested in the ideas which you present in your various books.
"I hope you will have a safe journey to Italy and back.
"I remain, as ever,
"Very sincerely and respectfully
yours,
"My dear Mr. Fletcher:
"I have yours of March 19th. I thank you very much for promising to write an introduction for the edition of Luigi Cornaro's life. You are just the man to do it. I propose to get the book out in neat, tasty shape. Shall be glad to have suggestions from you on this point. The manager of a large denominational publishing house in Chicago is interested and wants to publish it with us. He has promised to help about the artistic features.
"As regards our medical college, I ought to have told you that we are incorporated in the State of Illinois. Our medical school is really legally located in Chicago. We always have one or more classes down there for dissection, clinical work, and doing dispensary and missionary work in the city. Our school is officially recognised. Our diplomas are recognised in this country and in most foreign countries; our diplomas are recognised, in fact, in all countries which recognise American diplomas. The work done in our school is recognised by the best schools. Jefferson accepts students from our third year into their fourth, the graduating year, without examination. Kings College in Kingston, Canada, does the same; also Trinity College in Toronto, and other leading schools in this country. Our College is a member of the American Medical Association along with Bellevue, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Rush Medical College, and other leading schools. We have placed our standard high so that no one could object to the reform features of our work on account of incompetency. Our students are admitted to practice in New York, having passed the examinations of the State Board. Our best reason for believing that our diplomas are recognised everywhere is because of students from the College having passed the examinations in nearly every State. One of our students recently graduated from the University of Dublin after having spent a year there, as they require five years instead of four years as with us.
"Your experiments are surpassingly interesting. Your performance with Dr. Anderson was phenomenal. I confess you are a physiological puzzle. If chewing accomplishes these wonderful things for you, it is certainly worth the while. I am training myself from day to day to masticate my food more and more thoroughly and I confess there is greater good in it than I ever imagined.
"I am sending you a little box of foods that I think you will like, especially the protose roast, the gluten biscuit, and the chocolates.
"I would like to get hold of a list of your books; I want to put them into the hands of our students to read. Kindly give me a list of the names and the publishers and I will esteem it a favour.
"I might have said further in reference to our College that it is listed by the New York Board of Regents as well as by the Illinois State Board of Health. We are going to make considerable improvement in our school the next year. We are trying to put up a new building. We need $100,000 very much, as our work has no endowment and it requires very great sacrifice and most strenuous effort to keep it going. Our teachers work for a mere pittance and our students are compelled to save and economise in every way to get through. Nearly all of them have to pay their way in work of some sort.
"By the way, I am taking liberty to send you with this, copies of some little booklets which I have just gotten out in reference to our work.
"I am, as ever,
"Your friend,
"My dear Friend:
"I have your kind note of June 21st. I am happy to be remembered by you tho I have neglected writing you. I was afraid my letter would not find you on your journeys.
"We are chewing hard out here at Battle Creek, chewing more every day. We are continually thinking and talking of you and the wonderful reform you set going. We have gotten up a little 'chewing song' which we sing to the patients. It is only doggerel but it helps to keep the idea before our people. We dedicated it to you and I am going to send you a copy of it as soon as the printers get it ready. If you feel too much disgraced I will take your name off.
"That little book on 'Cornaro' is not out yet. We have been waiting for the introduction from you. We can wait as much longer as is necessary, as you are the man to furnish this introduction.
"I hope you will come West some time this summer so you can drop in and see us in our new building. We are not quite in perfect running order yet, but we shall soon be fixed in good shape and will be delighted to have you with us. You have helped us greatly in calling our attention to the great importance of chewing. We had known it for a long time but had not practised it. You demonstrated the thing in such a graphic way that the whole world is constrained to listen.
"Thanking you for your kind note,
"I remain, very sincerely yours,
"My dear Mr. Fletcher:
"I have your kind favour of July 14. You are doing me altogether too much honour. I am only a plodding, humble doctor, and have never had any opportunity to do any great thing, because of the limits of my abilities, and because I have not the opportunity to devote my energies to any one special thing; but have so many things to do that I can do nothing very well.
"I remember Dr. Krauss very well. He has for some years been assistant to Prof. Winternitz, the Professor of Nerve Diseases in the Medical Department of the Royal and Imperial University of Austria. He seemed a very able physician and a delightful gentleman. I was very glad to meet him.
"I have already sent you a copy of a little booklet entitled 'The Building of a Temple of Health.'
"We will be most happy to have a visit from you. I would like to know about what time you are coming, and I will endeavour to be here. I have a call to give an address at Chautauqua, N. Y., early in August, and if I do not know when you will be here, I might possibly be away, which I should consider a great misfortune.
"We have nothing here, I am sure, which will be new to scientific men, and I apprehend that they will have a very different opinion of our work than you have.
"I have a little book which I think I have not sent you, entitled 'The Living Temple.' I will send a copy to you; also a copy of the 'Chewing Song,' which is now out. It is nothing but a cheap thing, intended only for my own little folks; but it got out, and several people wanted it, so I have allowed it to be put in print. The purpose was, of course, simply to impress the chewing idea. Of course you are well, as you are apt to be well by chewing well.
"By the way, I met a disciple of yours a day or two ago. He was Senator Burrows, from Kalamazoo. He called with his wife and some other ladies, and Mr. Rose, the chief clerk of the U. S. Senate, to make us a little visit. I had a very delightful chat with them. On remarking to the Senator that he did not look any older than when I saw him last, but seemed to be very well, he told me he was in perfect health, and he expected to live for ever. He had recently gotten hold of something that was doing him so much good that he believed he should never be sick. I begged to know his secret, and found it was chewing. I asked him how he discovered it, and he told me he had learned it from your delightful book. You are certainly promoting the most important hygienic reform which has been brought forward in modern times. When you visit us again, you will see in our dining-room of our new building more Horace Fletcher disciples, and more hard chewers than you ever saw together