Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1915-10-28
PELLEGRA.

We have been insisting for some
time that one of the prime causes OF
pellegra was the use of corn or wheat
that was 80 rotten or musty that il
was unfit for human consumption.
Everyone should exercise caution in
the consumption of -four or meal, and
if it is not good and wholesome, they
should not use it. There is no excuse
for one raising corn for home con
sumption to she'll rotten or defective
corn in the sack that is destined to go
to the mill. Corn for use as bread on
the family table should be the best
possible, and good and sound. To
shell bad corn into the grist sack is
nothing less than criminal. and may
lead to a very serious disease.
The following from the pen of E.
A. Tlmmins. M. D., Nashville phys
ician, bears US out in our contention:
"Pellagra is skin, nerve and brain
starvation, accompanied with fun.
gus growth upon those tissues and its
toxic effect upon sucn an ill-fed con-
stitution.
"There is much analogy between
the structure of cereals and that OF our
bodies, both in nervous mechanism
and elementary composition. The
husk of the grain, connected with its
interior by plant nerves., is quite an
alogous to that of the skin. The skin
is immensely rich in veil-work of
nerve hlaments and nerve terminals,
which makes the skin closely allied in
composition to that of the larger nerve
branches, the nerve trunks and the
brain of the body. Therefore when
we eliminate from the cereals their
rusk, we cut out much food necessary
to the nutrition OF those tissues and
there is finally a breakdown Of them,
with an invasion of a disease, in many
incidents, analogous to that which in
feet similar tissues of cereals.
"Only comparatively recently has
pellagra thrust itself upon the Ameri-
an people. Back in the good old days,
not SO long since, we selected our GER
eeals with care. eliminated that which
was rotten, smutty or the least faulty,
had our wheat and corn ground at the
old water mill and ate it, usually,
without sitting out the rusk. In those
good old days we did not have pellag-
ra in America. We ate the best that
nature prepared for us and thereby I'M
consciously fed ourselves against such
a malady.
sin our treatment Of pellagra we
And that beans and peas are among
the best foods for it's cure. Why2 Be-
cause these cereals, in composition.
are built up like wheat and corn. but
of less faulty grains, and we do not
eliminate any Of their parts in our
eating them. We eat the whole bean
and the whole pea. That's why.
"Flom these facts pellagra is insid-
iously produced from lack Of sufic-
lent nutriment for the skin, nerves
and brain. followed with fungus in
lection. usually from smutty or mold
ed cereals, due chiefly to our present
milling process.
"When we revolutionize our mill
ing process, have mills that thorough
ly cleanse the pure grain and elimin-
ate the faulty grain, and when they
pulverize the whole wheat and whole
corn into respective flour and meal
and when we all take to eating the
whole of such products, without adul-
iteration, we will not only prevent the
further invasion of pellagra, but we
will eliminate many other skin troub-
les, nerve troubles, brain troubles and
still other troubles from our popula-
tion."