Fletcher, Horace

Fletcher, Horace

(1849–1919) author, lecturer; born in Lawrence, Mass. A San Francisco-based businessmen, he cured himself of overweight and chronic dyspepsia and after 1895 became a proselytizer for his own nutritional system. The most important element of his common-sense regimen prescribed chewing food until it was thoroughly mashed, a process once widely known as "fletcherism."

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.