the food partially digested becomes mixed with
that last taken. Therefore the interval between each meal should be
long enough for the whole quantity to be digested, and the time of
repose should be sufficient to recruit the exhausted organs. The
feebler the person and the more debilitated the stomach, the more
important to observe the above directions.

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303. Why is it important that we regard the manner of taking our food?
304. How should the intervals between meals be regulated? 305. What is
the average time required to digest an ordinary meal? 306. Why should
not food be taken too frequently?

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_Observation._ In the feeding of infants, as well as in supplying food
to older children, the preceding suggestions should always be
regarded. The person who has been confined by an exhausting sickness,
should most scrupulously regard this rule, if he wishes to regain his
strength and flesh with rapidity. As the rapidity of the digestive
process is less in students and individuals who are engaged in
sedentary employments, than in stirring agriculturists, the former
class are more liable to take food too frequently than the latter,
while its observance is of greater importance to the sedentary artisan
than to the lively lad and active farmer.

307. _Food should be well masticated._ All solid aliments should be
reduced to a state of comparative fineness, by the teeth, before it is
swallowed; the gastric fluid of the stomach will then blend with it
more readily, and act more vigorously in reducing it to chyme. The
practice of swallowing solid food, slightly masticated, or "bolting"
it down, tends to derange the digestive process and impair the
nutrition of the system.

308. _Mastication should be moderate, not rapid._ In masticating food,
the salivary glands are excited to action, and some time must elapse
before they can, secrete saliva in sufficient quantities to moisten
it. If the aliment is not supplied with saliva, digestion is retarded;
besides, in rapid eating, more food is generally consumed than the
system demands, or can be easily digested. Laborers, as well as men of
leisure, should have ample time for taking their meals. Imperfect
mastication is a prevailing cause of indigestion.

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What persons would be benefited by observing the preceding remarks?
307. Why should food be well masticated? What is the effect of
"bolting down"