Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/188

 result, nutritive material is absorbed into the circulation in quantity beyond the requirements of the body, loading the system with an unnecessary and harmful burden and hampering with poisonous waste the operation of its machinery. But, just as the liver stands guard, in so far as it may, over matters absorbed, and just as it separates the good from the bad, so, at the very inception of the digestive process, the mouth, with its armor of teeth and its salivary apparatus, determines in large degree the amount of food needed in nutrition.

The mouth holds the nerves of taste, taste is enjoyed in the mouth, and taste has its great purpose in deciding just when food has been ground between the teeth sufficiently to prepare it for the subsequent processes. Taste disappears when food has been properly insalivated, and too thorough mastication cannot occur, for the benefits derived are immeasurable, even apart from the comminution of solids. The mouth easily accomplishes this work when the habit of mastication has been acquired, but, if it perform it carelessly, the other organs of digestion cannot act in normal function, and, as a matter of fact, perfect digestion cannot occur,