The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1915-03-11
copyright. 1914. by A. S. Gray)
CONSTELLATION

mated, with its attendant poisoned
state of the blood from time imme-
mortal has been held responsible for
most OF ills humanity is heir to.
In the past constipated patients
were piled with pill and powder, oils,
salts, waters and other laxative COM
pounds, both natural and manufac-
tured One after the other invari-
ably they all failed in the end and
the doctor had to be again consulted
Generally he only varied the dose of
this or that or prescribed another
drug, without any attempt at a
thorough investigation, and generally,
too, without even so much as a cur
sorry examination. Finally the public
caught the idea and ceased going to
the doctor for such a minor allment
and experimental with various pills,
powders and waters, such as the in
genuity of the manufactures could
devise or the druggist could sug-
gest.
Aided and abetted by the artistic
photographer and the circus bill post
er, an educational campaign for in
struction on how every man may be-
come his own physician now forms
a highly suggestive background to the
general landscape throughout the
country. AS the result of clever ad-
vertising campaigns the carrying of
box Of laxative tablets, pills or
candy in the pocket in order to facili-
tate the regular daily dose of the
remedy has become habitual with a
large percentage of our people.
Constipation unfortunately is not
an insignificant local affair that may
easily be overcome by some simple
remedy but, on the contrary, it is gen
orally a symptom Of a slowly develop
ing constitutional condition, the spe-
cfic name of which will appear in
the death certificate of the victim.
1t is only of late years that we really
have begun to understand the relations
existing between constipation and the
rest Of the body; to comprehend that
functional inactivity in the gastric
tract is perhaps but part of a gen.
eral functional arrangement certain
to end disastrously ii not corrected
by comprehensive readjustment of
individual habits and relations.
Just as it is impossible for us to
understand human society until we
are able to visualize it, according to
the teachings of Herbert Spencer, as
an organism, as living evolving body,
just so is it impossible for us to unu-
derstand our individual physical ills
until we are able to reverse this proc
ess of Spencer's and visualize these
bodies of ours as a society of indi-
vidual units cooperating for mutual
help and protection.
When we came to understand that
our bodies are composed of individ-
ual cells, each a comprehensive indi-
vidual unit, and that the welfare of
the body as a whole depends on the
welfare of that individual cell or unit,
then it becomes fairly clear and easy
for us to grasp our needs and the
reasons for our ills and we begin to
see logical way out of our difficult
ties
BY far the most important factor in
the maintenance Of health is food. To
the average individual food means
something edible and palatable, which
will satisfy the demands of hunger
and thirst and enable him to maintain
normal strength of body and mind.
Up to a very recent time textbooks on
physiology taught that the three chief
foods of men were proteids, fats and
carbohydrates. Tucked away in an
obscure corner, If indeed they were
at all mentioned, under the name of
ash the mineral salts received a bare
mention, the author usually explaining
that little or nothing was known of
their action in physiology.
Recently we have come to under
stand that not only are there many
proteids and that some proteids do
not alone suffice to sustain human
life, but we have come to understand
also that proteids, fats and carbohy-
drates are not the three chief foods
of man.
Going back through millions of
years to the single cell, to the ameba
state of existence, we find that the
primary food elements were, and still
are, air, water and mineral salts. Com
ing up the long ladder of progressive
animal evolution, we finally come to
a period where proteids. fats, and car
bohydrates. in fixed definiteness and
proportion, became necessary to us
as vertebrates; and, while these three
classes of foods are absolutely vital
to our existence as higher animals,
we are beginning TO comprehend that
they are still subsidiary to the first
three-exactly as our more recently
acquired brain, superimposed on TO
our primitive sympathetic system, has
recently been demonstrated to be sub
sidIary TO the ductless gland system
comprising our primordial nervous
system.
The individual workers of the body,
the cells composing our bodies, are
nourished by the blood stream, and
the most valuable components of that