Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-03-13

boiled ear of corn we eat the bran.
Every time we eat Boston baked beans
or fresh peas we eat the bran of these
legumes. II is we'll indeed that we
eat these things because, while they
are not digested i'm themselves in the
sense of being taken up and oXidiZed
in the production of heat or energy,
they nevertheless contribute to the
body the soluble salts and colloids
which they contain and without which
energy-producing foods are useless to
the living body
Let us take an animal membrane
such as bladder and fill il with a
solution of any of the food minerals
and hang it on a nail against the
wall. II will hang there for days,
weeks, or months, and there will be
no leakage of its contents through
the skin. Not drop will ooze through
the membrane to appear on the out
side. We see that it guards its con-
tents as faithfully as would a glass
bottle properly corked.
If we now take the filed bladder
and immerse 1t in a. tub containing
another solution of different density
remarkable phenomenon will be OBJ
served. The contents of the bladder
will begin to pass out through the
membrane into the solution on the
outside. and the solution on the out
side Will begin to pass through the
membrane to the inside, so that
eventually the solution on the outside
and the solution on the inside will be
| identical in character.
The dissimilar liquids will be thor
ouShly diffused. The process by which
this diffusion is brought about is called
osmosis. Osmosis is going ON in the
body all the time.
We recreate and thus change the
mineral constituency of the internal
-
thereby continue to change the char
acter and density of the fluids i'm
which the cells are bathed. Thus do
the cells obtain their nutriment As
long as life continues osmosis does not
cease Protoplasm derives its nutrI-
ment through this process of osmosis.
In fevers or wasting diseases accom-
panied by extreme exhaustion as the
result of inability to consume food. or
in cases of starvation. the fluids inside
the cells gradually become Identical
in specific gravity with the fluids in
which they are bathed so that osmosis
becomes very feeble. When it ceases
altogether death ensues
The minerals which nature has put
into wheat and man SO deliberately
removes from his diet are lost to all
his needs and the vitalizing mission
which they are designed to perform
naturally and benevolently are not
performed at all.
Just as chopped meat surrenders its
mineral salts to the water in which
it is Immersed so also does the bran
of the wheat surrender its minerals
to the internal secretions of the body
I i'm the same way.
/ But bran not only furnishes indis-
| pensable mineral salts to the body
| 1t also acts as regulator of the peris-
/ taltic action of the alimentary tract
| by which the contents of the intestines
are kept moving onward and down
| ward.
/ one of the curses which white bread
imposes upon humanity is constipa.
/ ton. a thousand ills are traceable tC
this disorder. Patent medicines by the
hundreds have been marketed i'm order
! to help pill-consumers bridge over
! the misery which their white bread
inflicts upon them.
Constipation is the malevolent origin
of the woes of many American womer
who, through the congestion set up 10y
inhibited peristalsis, are afflicted with
uterine and ovarian diseases that
make their lives miserable.
Constipation is not the trifling dis
order which the public foolishly be.
lieves it to be. We are about TO sec
how grave it really is and to what
extent it undermines the health anC
vitality of America. A proper under
standing of the significance of consti
patton will do much to destroy the
! white bread superstition.