The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1944-09-14

Your Health
Human Machine
Surpasses Thar
of Automobile
BY Logan clendennins, NJ. D.
WHEN AND if the glorious day
comes when we can get brand
new car it will be difficult to make
q choice, or so | judge from some
Of the preliminary prophetic draw
DR.. Clendening will answer
questions of general interest
only, and then only through
his column.
ings and paintings of models
which an enthusiastic car dealer
showed me the other day.
But STILL" | said, you haven't
got as good a machine as | have"
So he got huffy and wanted to
know what | meant. So | told him
about machine that you poured
fuel into three times a day and
this kept it running, and oiled it,
and repaired it when necessary
and even gradually transformed
II into next years model.
Human Machine
He caught on that | was talking
about the machine known as the
human body.
He said it would be nice to have
that kind Of fuel. And | said
"Oh! that's easy" What is it,"
he asked. And | answered-"Grass
all flesh is grass"
The cycle Of Nature which pro-
duces living organisms and the
energy of living organisms, starts
with the sunshine and the air.
Plants use these and are even more
wonderful machines than animals
in that they can use such simple
substances and turn them into
structure and life. The best physi-
illogical chemists have been baf-
fled in trying to turn carbon diox-
ide, water and sunlight into car
bohydrate. They can make soda
water and that's about all. They
have, it is true, by great effort
succeeded in synthesizing more
simple sugars, but at a cost of
time, labor and money as to make
them prohibitive. While the mean
est flower that blows does this
trick Of synthesis with an ease and
abundance that puts the machin-
cry of the wise to shame.
In the next step in the cycle of
Nature this synthetic product Of
plants is taken into the animal
body and turned into ealories-
into energy.
Needs Of Body
The animal body. of course,
needs something else for its nu-
trition-protein to build into flesh
and this too the plant supplies, but
not quite SO surely or abundantly
as it does carbohydrates. Besides
carbon and oxygen the plant needs
nitrogen for proteins. II one were
inclined to carp at Nature one
could point out that one Of its
major mistakes, if not its major
mistake, was in not giving plants
the power to take nitrogen out of
the atmosphere, as they do carbon
dioxide.
In order to build their proteins
they must get the nitrogen from
the soil. Some of the plants are
very good at this-the legumes,
and this is because Of all living
creatures only certain kinds Of
bacteria can remove nitrogen
from the air and these bacteria in
habit nodules on the roots of the
legume family. Leguminous plants
so blessed-particularly soy beans
provide the most promising sub
stitute for animal foods-meat,
eggs and milk-now known.
The protein molecule is a huge
loose structure made up Of a num-
Der Of amino acids. Our edible
plants furnish US with most Of the
essential amino acids and the ami
NAL body synthesizes these into
proteins Of building blocks Of the
animal body. The building blocks
are fairly easy to get from plants,
but growth proteins are not so
certain on a purely vegetable diet,
and for that reason we obtain them
in practice mostly from animal
foods. The lsctating glands Of ami
mails which produce food for the
young-milk-and the reproduc-
tive glands which produce the
Syarv,, ~ tba uonp. a.n. naA,,-.I