THE COMMON ILL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 208, 3 September 1927, Page 30

THE COMMON ILL.

INDIGESTION.

REMOVING THE CAUSES.

(By PERITCS.)

Biologists by microscopes, radiologists by light, and others by direct experiments upon animals and man, have added enormously of late years to physiological knowledge, but the why and how of the processes of digestion and assimilation are as yet attended by many unsolved mysteries. Although man is now accused of being a "machine," the fact that every human machine differs in some way from every other gives the medical profession an infinite variety of problems, r Not many years ago the motto of the profession was "find the cure"; to-day it is "find the cause," which is, of course, connected with the ideal—prevention. There "have been doctors who have made a reputation, and patent medicines which have had much success on purely stop-the-pain principles, but to smother the warning of nature without regarding its meaning is a temporary expedient and unworthy of science. Treatment which Becures tho absence of pain without, at the same time, being accompanied by eager and persistent search for the cause, is fruitful in disaster, and the absence of pain is no certain indication of the cure of, or non-existence of, disease. A recent lay writer has said that "Man is the only animal which considers or studies its food both before and after it has been ingested," but as man is also the only animal who makes fire, goes to church and visits the pictures, this remark should do not more than draw attention to this—that when God breathed a spirit into man, He complicated man's physical reaction by the semi-domination of his mind. A cow cannot think herself into a sickness. She may by absence of thought throw herself down upon a spike of cut scrub, or cause herself some other physical injury because her instinct of selfpreservation is in abeyance; but she cannot eat some perfectly harmless meadow grass and give herself a pain by believing it to be indigestible because "it is unfamiliar.. That is man's privilege. Acidosis. Much attention has been given to the over, and under, secretion of acid in the human stomach, and some wonderful words have been invented to describe both conditions. One doctor will meet this excess of acid by an alkaline antidote to neutralise the acid; another will say that acid (spirits of salts diluted, or mild aqua fortis) given as a drug, promotes alkaline secretion and makes the body itself neutralise the excess acid. Both meet with gratifying success, but behind the secreting organ is the nervous system, and it is only common sense to reason that the latter is the controlling force. Now, if you could look at your big toe and order it to blush, and it immediately flamed red, you would feel that you might control internal secretions, but as it is these secretions come in response to outside stimulus, and—on the penny-in-the-slot principle—give what is demanded of them. This is in normal! circumstances. It is easier to feed your husband than yourself. His digestion isi his affair and you may dump down the! day's dinner and wordlessly express the thought, "take it or leave it"; but when yon come to feed yourself you have two guides, your personal likings and the warnings nature has given. "Tea," you say, ''now, I like tea, but always after drinking tea—" Well, then, try a differ-! ent, many different teas. Try them I weak, strong, with milk or without, with J lemon, with sugar; be brave, experiment I —then act accordingly. Thousands drink tea, and the greedy wretches enjoy it! Why not you? Ascertain the why of your own select peculiar responses. The doctor, poor fellow, knows too much for his own peace of mind, yet not enough. Although he can, so to speak, see inside, ho can never be sure of what is going on there in the dark. He can tell you not to eat boiled lobster, but not how to eat it with enjoyment —at the time and after; —unless you have a lobsterish constitution. Methods. The newly-made vegetarian must have courage, and very often, with the power of mind over matter, he converts his protein factory into a vegetable destructor and saves enough out of the refuse with which to build up an expanded industry. It is my duty to tell you what to do! with a rebellious stomach. Unless there is serious disease there are two methods open to you—altogether avoiding drugs —either make the stomach obey you, or! cravenly obey your stomach. Starve it into subjection or let it partly starve you. Sir Thomas Horder says, humorously, "The fashion to-day is to put as little into the body as possible and get it out again as soon as you possibly can." This is the extreme teaching of the New Health Society, which is rather a nuisance—perhaps a new sense of the disadvantages of carrying waste products. A moderately distended stomach is a more than moderately happy one, and if the food contained is reasonably wholesome, it will not reject anything of value. Meat or fish once daily, fruit three times daily, bread, potatoes, porridge, milk, eggs (in any form) and a very restricted amount of starchy food not before named, with not less than three or four pints of water (or watercontaining fluids) each 24 hours, will give you all necessary vitamins. « Fortunately the coming fashions demand a slim figure, and as cakes and "lollies" are fatal to slimness, and "soft drinks" prejudicial, our girls may escape the perils of over-eating in the immediate future: It is wonderful what varieties of food can be safely used by a healthy human without injury, and what ridiculous, fancies cause rebellion against harmless trifles; but by training ifflje stomach, little by little it can be coaxed into coping efficiently with diet which, in consequence of unwise pampering at one time hung within it- like lignite and made an ache like the swelling nerve of a bumptious tooth.

As we grow elderly, a little, a very little, alcohol aids digestion, when taken for the purpose and at the right time. A real good breakfast is easily carried; a "hearty", meal in the middle of the day is better than one of the same sort at night, but mealtimes should not run with astronomical regularity; rather with gastronomical sensations. The "light lunch" is a blessing in summer, but a poor thing for winter service, and although a late dinner may keep you warm and asleep through a winter night, it will spoil you for the following morning in summer. Vary, then, your habits with the seasons.

Dysdigestion (difficult) is worse than non-digestion because you bear it longer without complaint or change of wayß. "Hay good digestion wait on appetite," but do not permit your appetite to run away with your discretion. Appetite is a hint, not a command.