BRAIN NUTRITION.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 658, 29 July 1876, Page 4

BRAIN NUTRITION.

[Prom the National Food and Fuel Beformer.] The brain, in common with the body, fre- I quently suffers from defective nutrition to an extent that we are not cognisant of. This loss of brain power may not only result from actual deprivation of food, but from the hurried rush of business, not allowing sufficient relaxation to the body to allow it to digest the food taken, and pass it into the system for the renovation of the waste of the tissues. Those who have never reflected on and ■tudied the influence of well-arranged diet, and sound digestion on the health of the brain and mental functions, may obtain some idea of its extent by the examination of the details of extreme cases. Starvation, it is well known, often terminates in ferocious delirium, as in the case of castaways at sea ; but who, if not too far gone, are easily curable by a nourishing diet, carefully administered. More especially at the period of rapid growth of the body the mental functions are weakened and the brain disordered from inadequate nutrition. This defective nutrition, however, does not always depend on want of proper food. On the contrary, among the higher classes it is often the result of too much or too stimulating food, over-exciting, and ultimately so impairing the digestive powers as to render them incapable of reducing the food to the proper state for assimilation. The result is the same in both cases—imperfect constitution of the Wood, and, of course, imperfect nutrition of the tissues of the body and supply of Wood to the brain. Investigation into the chemical constituents of the blood show that in most diseases they deviate very much from the healthy standard, and it is easy to understand how the circulation of diseased or impure blood in the brain should be at once followed by symptoms of imperfect brainwork, or what we choose to call nervous^disorders. Hyßteria, though called a nervous disease from its most striking symptoms, is in reality in a large number of cases only the result of imperfect nutrition, and the great remedy to be prescribed is a stricter attention to the fundamental laws of nature. The same remarks may be applied to those many cases where dissipation or excess of business has resulted in blanched cheeks and dimned eyes, showing the alteration which the blood has undergone, no longer affording the necessary stimulus either to the brain or body. Can we wonder at the jaded literary or professional man flying to the use of those stimulants which restore to him, at least for a time, his wonted mental activify, but ■which, by exhausting his reserves of strength, leave him in a far worse state than he was before 1 This is one of the chief causes of the melancholia which so frequently leads either to the lunatic asylum or to suicide. Such cases can only be successfully remedied by a total cessation from business, and by change of scene and perfect attention to diet. From this proneness of the in-sufficiently-nourished brain to a morbid and irregular action may be directly traced why in times of universal distress the lower classes are bo apt to resort to rioting and other acts of violence to gain that focd which will remove the* cause of their discontent. The brain, weakened by want of food, becomes extremely liable to any excitement, and ceases to exercise its usual self-control, which sufficiently explains the greater effect of alcoholic stimulants taken after a prolonged fast. "When, however, actual famine ensues, this excitement passes off into a torpid condition, and then into lethargy, the blood having ceased to supply any stimulus to the brain beyond what is barely sufficient to keep the sufferer barely conscious of what is passing around him. Of course if this is not promptly relieved, death steps in to clorfe the scene. Any long-continued disregard of the laws of health mu3t result in some one of those disorders called nervous—the individual becomes irritable, distracte 1 by slight things, never free from some ache or pain, aud is a burden to himself and those surrounding him. When real disease attacks them their "nervous" symptoms become greatly exa<> gexated, to the distraction of their friends, and oftentimes the embarrassment of the r medical attendant. But enough has been said to show the paramount importance of close attention to the laws which govern the nutrition of the bo3y, but this, as we have repeatedly said be r ore, can only be attained by the wide spread instruction in something more than elementary physiology in our schools. Then, and only then, shall we have any chance of ridding ourselves of tbr anomalous fact that the food which is intended to nourish the system sometimes becomes the means of deranging it; or if from any accidental cause it does become deranged, the knowledge of how to renovate it will not have to be purchased by that bngbear of paterfamilias—the doctor's bill. Every one acquainted with the express rate at which our men of business live at the present time, disregarding every one of Nature's laws with regard to regular hours of meals, hurried eating, Sec, will wonder with ourselves that more cases of premature breakdown both of body and mind do not exist, and wonder all the more when it is considered that there is no faculty of the body which responds so readily to generous treatment as the brain, that it should be treated with such total disregard.