Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/186

 consequence of persistent cultivation, the sense of taste has been much perverted, and most men and women are more or less abnormal in taste perception. To the lack of sense perception in this respect is due much of carelessness in mastication. Improperly accomplished salivation and the seeds of disease are resulting evils. With normal taste the medical profession would be at loss to administer the average drug were the patient to masticate or insalivate its substance. Recognizing this fact as well as the subsequent action of the digestive juices upon medical remedies, the physician obviates the difficulty presented by the use of capsules or by introducing the drug directly into the blood.

The sense of smell, reaching out beyond the body ere food material passes the lips, assists in its selection, and it and taste, when normal in function and not vitiated by cultivation and habit, form a perfect picket-line of protection against the introdution of unwholesome nourishment into the system. Normally constituted bodies prefer those odors that are classified as pleasant, yet continual personal contact with emanations that are distinctly disagreeable, first brings tolerance and finally pleasure in their presence.