HEALTH COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1934, 19 March 1891, Page 38

HEALTH COLUMN.

Errors ia Invalid Feeding. The three prime foods of tne invalid chamber are milk, gruels, and fiaeat soups. As ordinarily administered, these are a delusion and a snare. The milk curdles, and may thus do no end of damage. The starch is not acted upon at all in the stomach, and may roll about in thi& organ for nours, aggravating the fever, inducing delirium, and causing no end of unpleasant symptoms. Milk. — As already pointed out, cow's milk differs from the human milk, in that the former when Jtaken in to the atomach forms heavy curds, while the latter only flafces. These curds are often as tough and hard as felt. Upon theae the secretions of a disabled stomach can have but little effect. In inflammation, of the mucous mem» brane, in gastrio ulcer, intestinal uloerations, diarrhoea, and peritonitis theco curds may occasion the direst results } in typhoid fever, where the large intestine is ulcerated, they have produced fatal haemorrhage. Occasion feas already been taken in this column to refer to some of the dangers attendant on the administration of plain cow^ milk, and to paint out the best methods of overcoming: the difficulties. Milk should* under any circumstances, be boiled before giving it to the invalid. In case of extreme illness something more than that is wanted, and of late years it has become common to predigest the milk. The process of predigestion is easily accomplished, all that Is required being to add a Zymine peptonising powder to each jpint of milk, which should be afterwards iept warm for 20 minutes. It is claimed for milk thus prepared that it agrees well with the Btomaob* will not curdle like plain milk, and is fat more nutritious, because more assimilable than the latter. Ibis suitable for all ordinary culinary purposes, and is even miscible with lemon juice. 'Gruels. — There are two digestive ferments in the body that act on starch, for starch must be digested before it can be absorbed. One of these ferments is the salivary diastase in the saliva ; the other is the pancreatic diastase in the pancreatic juice. The stomach has no action upon starch. In many conditions of disease— such as fever — the diastase is no longer secreted, or, if so, but incompletely, The result is, gruels, though considered light by nurses, may be ! anything but what is proper for invalids. Oases have been reported where the food has rolled undigested in the stomach for a { couple of days, and then been regurgitated. | Ie is difficult to conceive of anything which would be more likely to roll about undigested in an invalid's 'stomach than starchy foods, such as gruels." Gruels are certainly light and pleasant food; in convalescence they may prove of inestimable value, but in severe cases gruels should always be digested before they are given. If to a plate of warm gruel there be added a little Kepler malt extract, the gruel will turn liquid at once, for the malt liquefies and digests it quickly. When treated in this manner, starchy food becomes admissible.