Miscellaneous

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 178, 2 August 1909, Page 4

Miscellaneous

Advantages of a Starve i, v ;» x a ij r \v v.' il> o x Few readers perhaps will read the title of this article without indulging in some measure of surprise. Starvation is as a rule associated in our minds with a condition of body such as disposes towards disease, and there is no doubt whatever that in a case of regular and systematic starvation the bodily powers soon fail for want of nourishment, and disease of various characters is thereby induced. The starvation with which I am dealing today is, however, of a different kind, and it may be said to represent a form of rest applied to the d'gestive organs. lam prepared to show furthermore, that such rest is not merely highly beneficial in certain cases of disease, but may be said to from a means of treatment vastly superior to all others if it can be promptly applied. Considering in the first instance what nature herself teaches us when illness attacks us, there are few if any diseases in which amongst the signs of illness the disappearance of the appetite does not mark the first stags of the attack. Indeed, in very many complaints an absolute loathing for food may exist, and this remark applies to the food of which when in health the patient may be inordinately fond. —An Example.—

Here nature teaches us that part of the cure at which she is aiming is the avoidance of giving work to the digestive organs when they are unable properly to perform their labours- Take next the example of stomach affections, and begin with a simple case of indigestion. Here we find that for months or it may be for years, a person has been groaning and suffering under the pains and pangs of indigestion. Day by day he eats, knowing that he has somehow or other to keep up his strength, but at the same time he fears to indulge what appetite be has because he knows that sooner or* later when the digestive organs get to work on the food, pain and misery will be his lot. Hence he struggles on and at last awakens to the fact that some radical change in his diet is necessary. The food is altered, light articles of diet alone are taken, yet still, because his ailment has not been properly attended to in time, his sufferings may continue. I believe that the real remedy that has been most effective and of the simplest nature will be found in his giving to his stcmach as nearly as possibly absolute rest. If such a person, for example, reduced his meals to one or two a day, and suppose that for, some days longer if possible, be lived on milk alone —the milk, if it did not agree with him in a pure state, might be taken diluted with a little water and with lime water —what, it may be asked, would be the effect of such practice? In the first place, we see the stomach would be relieved of a very considerable portion of its labours. It would, in fact, obtain what it evidently requires, namely, a much needed rest. —After-treatment. — If feeling that his pains and miseries were in some degree or altogether lessened by this radical change of food he then began to adopt his old method of diet the probability is that his symptoms would again return. What he has to do in this case is to adopt a very gradual approach to a reasonable dietary, and he should begin by taking food of as light a character as possible for a time. Let him continue his milk diet, adding thereto once a day at first a little boiled white fish or alternating the fish every second day, with such a light diet as tripe well cooked constitutes. After a time of this diet if he finds Jiimself still improving he may then cautiously once or twice a week venture upon a little mutton, which is more digestible than beef, and even preferable to mutton would be boiled fowl, because the flesh of the bird is more easily digested than that of sheep. Later on, be may indulge in his potatoes, fruits, and like articles of diet, but it may be that all his life afterwards if he wishes to escape his ancient enemy he will require to exercise care in diet and to see that light foods alone are taken. The main point, however, which I have been endeavouring to impress on the minds of readers is the preliminary rest given to the digestive organs by what I have called the starvation diet in the early days of treatment.