1. This book was written to present a careful and candid account of the nature of water and its physiological effects. 2. To Explain the effects of water when used as a remedy for disease and to demonstrate its value as a remedial agent. 3. To show that the employment of water in the treatment of disease has been practiced by the most eminent physicians of all ages and is not a modern discovery. 4. To expose those absurd and erroneous practices which have brought the use of water as a remedy into disrepute and have thus deterred scientific physicians from adopting it.

Dr. J. H. Kellogg, who, along with his brother, invented the corn flake, here offers a "popular account of the travels of a breakfast through the food tube and of the ten gates and several stations through which it passes, also the obstacles which it sometimes meets." At the time he wrote this book, Dr. J. H. Kellogg was the medical director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. Kellogg was a committed Adventist who was very interested in proper diet and health, which led to his medical vocation, but also to a keen interest to find natural remedies for disease. Among other things, he promoted vegetarianism, which led to the development of the corn flake and other breakfast cereals. He was the author of more than fifty books.