The Topeka state journal., 1913-05-29
STOMACH NEEDS RIGHT FOOD
Study of Digestion Shows Why Care
Should Be Used in Eating.

If you were to see a fireman throw
ing small pieces of dynamite, soggy
wood, tin cans, mud and some coal
into his furnace you would know he
know that he could not get up much
| steam, and that he would soon clog
| things up SO that he would put his
| power plant out of business. That is
| just what many sO-called intelligent
people do when they mix whisky cof-
| fee, starches, acids, sweets. and lot
of mushy, greasy things in their stom-
achs.
1 have recently received thousands
,, of letters which convince me that the
vast majority of people do not really
know what digestion, assimilation and
metabOliSm are, therefore, l am going
to explain these things in as simple
language as possible to show the read
er that everything he eats should be
carefully selected and for a specific
purpose.
What we call appetite is not a good
guide, for people have appetites for
drugs, sweets and coffee, all of which
goes to show that the appetite cannot
be trusted.
Everything one puts into the stom-
ach that can be converted into energy,
bone, brain or tissue clogs the diges-
tive organs and the 1000 miles of
small tubing through which the
blood circulates, SO that he probably
per cent of it's efficiency.
Digestion is merely the process of
preparing food to be taken into the
tissues. The various steps of digestion
are as follows:
Food is subdivided or ground fine
by mastication. Nature pours into the
mouth a fluid called saliva, which is
chemically called an a1kali. The prin-
cipal purpose of an alkali is to dis
solve and prepare starches, sweets
and many other things for digestion,
therefore mastication should be very
thorough The more food is maSti-
Gated the finer it will be pulverized
or Subdivided, and the more thorough
the saliva will act upon its various
atoms
careful study CT this first process
of digestion will also show that one
should not eat too many soft. mushy
composed of a liberal portion of
coarse foods that require considerable
mastication, for in the process of mas
tication the salivary glands are filled
and pour their contents into the
mouth, and thus the requisite amount
of saliva is furnished to aid in pre-
pairing food for final digestion.
The second process of digestion
takes place in the stomach.
The stomach is the first stopping
place or depot, as 1t were, for our
food. In the stomach walls there are
thousands of little cells or receptacles
WnlCn SecreIe a 1lu1O calleQ
juice. This is the second digestive
fluid, and is a strong acid, called in
the leading medical works hydro
chloric acid. When one is not hungry
these little gastric cells are empty, but
when hunger appears they fill up with
gastric juice, and when we take food
into the stomach they empty their
contents and mix it with the food so
as to dissolve all such things as could
not be dissolved by the saliva
In the third step in digestion the
food from the stomach passes into the
duodenum where it comes in contact
with the third fluid of digestion, which |
is called bile. Bile is secreted by the
liver and is slightly alkaline like the |
saliva.
In the fourth step in digestion the !
pancreas which is a gland that lies
just behind and slightly below the
secretes a fluid called pam
creatic juice, which, like the gastric |
juice. is slightly acid. This juice is
into the duodenum just above |
where it connects with the small in |
testines. If any food matter has not /
been dissolved by the action of hydro
chloric acid it will be acted upon by
the pancreatic juice.
From this it will be seen that the
four digestive fluids above described |
alternate-first an alkali and then an
acid. This is so arranged that any
atom of food not dissolved by one will
Assimilation is the act of absorbing
he nutrition after it has been prepared
by the various digestive steps above
referred to. The process of assimila-