The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1880-07-02
Shall We Bolt Our Food?

Ii there is any point In physiology
upon which authorities have generally
agreed it is that fast eating is unfavora-
BILE to digestion. The food must be
thoroughly chewed, they tell us, i'll order
to mix it thoroughly with the saliva, the
first of the fluids essential to its assimila-
ton, and to prepare it for being acted
upon in the stomach by the gastric juice,
the second of those fluids. The more
perfectly it is subdividcd, the greater sur
face it exposes to the action of the gastric
juice, and the more rapidly it will, there
FORE be dissolved and reduced to proper
condition for the next stage OF the dlges-
tive process Every school boy has
learned this in his textbook of physiol-
ogy, and it seems so reasonable on the
face of it that we need not wonder at its
having been universally accepted as a
hygienic axiom.
But as we have before said in the
Journal, there is no scientific proposition
so automatic or self-evident that 1T may
not be disputed nowadays. Dirt has
been defended by learned Dutchmen, and
even foul air has its champions. The
arguments in favor of drinking ditch
water and breathing vitiated atmos-
phere are, however, less plausible than
those by which fast eating has recently
been advocated as being more consistent
with the true philosophy of digestion
than more deliberate feeding. The
thorough mastication which the latter in
wolves is declared to be not only unneces-
sary, but positively injurious, interfering
with the work done in the stomach IN
stead of promoting it. DR.. William
Browning, who made some experiments
with dogs, in order to satisfy himself on
this point says:
eff the meat, before being fed to the
dog, was reduced to hash or cut into fine
pieces, the digestion was at best but
imperfect, a considerable portion OF the
undigested or imperfectly digested meat
being found in the excreta. If, under the
same conditions, meat was fed to the dog
in large pieces, it was bolted at n gulp,
with the result that little, if any, passed
through undigested; compared with the
result from the chopped meat, it could be
called a perfect digestion for the coarse
form as compared with decidedly I'M
perfect digestion for the fine form. So
far as simple experiment goes, this must
be pretty conclusive for the dog.
He reasons, and logically enough, that
the same ought to be true OF human
digestion:
"The rotary movements of the con-
tents of the stomach is to facilitate the
gastric juice, to bring the various par
ticles and Jumps of the mass into contact
with it Us it exudes from the stomach S
walls. If the material has come from
the mouth finely ground up, considera-
BILE portion goes over into the duodenum
before it has been properly acted upon;
but if it has come down III coarse Jumps,
these begin shortly to dissolve, passing
into a more or less fluid condition, and
this can be taken care of with about the
same rapidity by the digestive apparatus
following. By this arrangement no por-
ton of the food would be allowed to pass
from the stomach unprepared for the next
step in the digestive process. All por-
tons, then, even the finest tibers OF meat
diet, must be acted on by the gastric
juice before passing on, and this pro-
crosses best by slowly wearing off the
outside of the muscles.
Prof Ludwig has made some expert
ments upon himself to test this theory,
eating coarsely divided meat at one time
and fine ut another, and states that he
has not been able to detect any i'll effects
whatever from swallowing mouthfuls as
large as he could conveniently manage.