To aid the students of his memory school in New York, Bruno Furstprovides them with a printed number dictionary listing a variety ofappropriate words for each number from 1 to 1,000. Such lists arenot necessary, however, unless you intend to develop great profi-ciency in the art.
Solid evidence that Martin Gardner was at least aware of a portion of Bruno Fürst's work.
It's been a while, but I'll have to look back to see what Furst says, if anything, about increasing speed.