Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-05-21
WHEAT MEAL OR WHITE FLOUR
A Chapter on What Increases Nutriment
and Preserves HEALTH.


From the Science Amateur.
To attain condition of perfect health
certain requirements must be fully met.
This fundamental declaration is imper-
alive, and the disobeying of the law Is
constantly showing itself in a diversity of
ailments.
The various forms of machinery that
are used in our manufactures receive
constant attention. Only the kinds of
oil are applied that have the hest lubri-
eating power, and as a result the ma
chinery runs smoothly and even noise
lessly. The human machine, per contra,
is constantly getting out of or
der: the nerves. bones and mus
cles are imperfecly supplied with
the proper pabulum; and as
a consequence we have disturbances
m3anifesting themselves in the shape of
disordered health. The blood cries out,
pains, for better sustenance, but the cry
is generally in vain-the same food is
supplied ad nauseam. Why should men
heed the laws that govern the inani.
mate, and not pay due, attention to the
living organism? Perhaps we find the
key to this hcedlessness in the words of
that great stole philosopher, Seneca,
who wrote eighteen hundred years ago.
There Is nothing against which we
ought to be more on guard than, like q
flock, following the crowd of those who
have preceded us-going as we do, not
where we ought to go, but where men
have walked before"
Draper, in his physiology, likens the
body to the fame of candle-it is con-
stantly being fed and is constantly burn
ing away. The quality of the light will
wholly depend on the material supplied
In the same way. to attain robust,
vigorous and healthy condition, man
Kind must take as food only that sort
which contains those ingredients that
are essential. Too much of one kind, or
too little of another, disturbs the equi-
librium. Bread has been called the
staff of life, and yetth figure of speech,
in view OF the kind of bread that most
persons eat, is decided misnomer.
The ordinary white -four. which forms
the basis of 30 much tood that is eaten,
is principally starch compound, and
contains only three of the fifteen ele-
ments that go to compose the body,
namely, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
To prove that white -four does not
meet the requirements Of the body,
Magendie fed it wholly to number of
dogs, and at the end of forty days they
died. Others, to whom he gave the
wheat meal, at the end of this time were
in frst-class condition. More than half
of the children under IL years of age
have decayed teeth, owing to the insult
ficient supply of the required mineral
ingredients, and this deficiency liz
caused, as a rule, by eating white bread.
Dyspepsia, constipation, loss of nerve
power. and many other diseases, are
produced by improper feeding. Sui
phur is required for the growth of the
hair. yet white flour does not contain a
trace; the phosphates are also notably
lacking, and as these substances are alb
solutely necessary in the animal econo-
my, then, arguing a priori, the use of
bread as ordinarily prepared should be
interdicted.
When -four is made of the whole
grain OF the wheat, we have an article
of food which contains all the elements
that the body requires for its support;
and this -four should be universally
used in spite of the false aesthetic taste
that demands a white loaf" for such
theory of taste tested by the canons of
common sense loses its force, and what
the body demands should be the touch
stone rather than what pleases the eve
of the unthinking housewife.
To paraphrase the words of Sydney
Smith, in reference to the various forms
of errors that still hold with tenacious
grip their sway: "The centuries that
have passed have had ample oppor-
tunity to display the full bloom Of their
imbecility," and it would seem quite
time to call a halt in the way of improp-
er feeding.
Sir Henry Thompson, in an article on
"Diet," says: 81 have come to the con-
clusion that proportion. amounting, at
least, to more than one-half of the dis
eases which embitter the middle and
latter part of life, among the different
classes oil the population. is due to avoid
able errors in diet"