SECRETS OF GOOD HEALTH.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 January 1927, Page 4

SECRETS OF GOOD HEALTH.

OUt; DAILY BREAD

By Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane. M. 8., M.S

It is scarcely necessary to point out that bread and other articles of food made from flour form a very large part of our daily food.

At a rough estimate Hour provides the average working class lamily with nearly half the food that produces heat and energy- that is. half the fuel required to drive the engines of the human body.

It represents anything from onefifth to one-seventh of the weekly expenditure oil food and constitutes onehalf to two thirds of the total weight of food consumed.

One would suppose, therefore, that this particular food substance would be the last we should choose so to degrade that one of the greatest living authorities on diet is able to say that “white flour is not only the most important and widely used article of diet in Europe and America, but it is notably deficient in more dietary factors than anv other food except sugar.” HEIGHT OF FOLLY.

This sweeping statement in condemnation of white flour is well merited. The milling process to which our cereal foods are subjected is one of the worst things civilised man has devised for his own undoing. Deliberately to remove certain parts of tbe wheat grain so as to please the eye and the palate while we rob the body of invaluable material for its well-being is surely tbe height of folly. Vet the vast majority of people in this country and America prefer this staple substance of their diet to be thus degraded. CAUSE OF PARALYSIS.

I White flour is produced by removal of tlie germ of the wheat grain and of its branny coverings. Hi this germ and bran are contained the special vitamin substance on which the health and vitality of the nervous system is largely dependent. If this substance is absent front the daily food to a serious extent paralysis and death will ensue. A less marked defftciency causes serious disorder of the bowel and leads through constipation to bowel disease and grave imnairmont of tbe general health. Removal of the bran deprives tbe body of valuable mineral salts and the bowel of ?ts natural stimulation to efficient action. Bread containing the bran of the wheat encourages proper mastication and so promotes a healthy condition of the teeth and gums and a full development of the jaw bones by providing them with proper exercise. VALUE OF MASTICATION. Tts absence from bread is largely lesponsihle for the widely prevalent diseases of the teeth and gums. Mastication also promotes a free secretion of saliva and of the important ferments

contained in it so essential to proper digestion.

The people of Sweden, who make their bread from the entire grain of rye, bake it so hard that the most thorough and vigorous mastication Is necessary. Lye bread can now be obtained in quantity in Ibis country, and is to he highly recommended. Wholemeal flour can and should be used for all purposes for which white Hour is now employed, such ns in the making of pastry, cakes, and so forth. By doing so universally a very great improvement in the health of the community conic! be obtained at no cost beyond the sacrifice of a totally unfounded prejudice in favour of the v luted sepulchre now in popular favour.

The jewel oi lienlth lies in the whole Krfiin of the wheat, l>nt- the pearls arc thrown to the swine and man is deprived of his heritage and his health. LESSONS FROM SAVAGES. CRy Sir V. Arhnthiiot Lane M II IU.S.) LONDON, Nov. 3. .Many years ago tint great organiser l )r Simon Flexuer, always on the lookout to secure men of superlative genius to pjaril- in that hotbed of intellectual research the Rockefeller Institute in New York, discovered such a one in Chicago. Ho was a French medical man who was educated in Lyons and later drifted into the research laboratory of Dr Carl Look, a very eminent surgeon in Chicago. Dr C.irl Reek had always paid great attention to the laboratory aspect of his profession and managed to secure for it very able moil.

Tim tiamo of Hie French surgeon was Dr Alexis Carrel. Entering that institute—the most generous gift of the

American oil king—Dr Carrel employed his wonderful dexterity and manipulative skill iu performing such extraordinary operations as exchanging the legs of dogs and carrying out many experiments which were of the greatest use to surgerv. GROAVINf! LIVING TISSUES.' He then determined to attempt to grow living tissues, and three years before the war lie was able to grow various tissues of the body upon microscope slides. These were kept at a suitable temperature, wore fed daily with some juice from a living organ, and were washed daily to remove the products of digestion by the cells of the tissue of the food material which was administered to them. Treated in this manner the tissues grew and throve, tho eel's multiplying and the material increasing steadilv in hulk.

Tie found that if the drainage of the products of the digestion of the hodv juice by the cells was not effected at sufficiently short intervals the colls became wanting in vitality and in size. Tf tho interval was .sufficiently long the cels shrank and died.

This impressed him with the vital importance of drainage in the case of the several tissues of the body. Tho specimens which were thriving before the wfr are still growing, and as far as it is possible to see will continue to grow and thrive for ever presuming their diet and drainage are attended to with regularity. For this and his other work Dr Alexis Carrel received the Nobel prize, which his labours richly deserved. AVliilo his ember work was most interesting and useful to the medical profession, these successful experiments iu tho mode of growth of living tissues have thrown a flood of light upon our methods of treatment, since they have demonstrated in the clearest possible manner the enormous and vital part which the drtainage of the pioducts of digestion, not only of the several cells which compose every organ in the body but also of the body as a whole, plays in the preservation of health and in the "duration of life.

Let. us apply this most important knowledge to our daily lives. Two thousand years ago Hippocrates, tho Father of Medicine, the great pioneer of the New Health .Society, rcgjirded it as the most important function of tho doctor that lie should instruct the people in tho laws of health. This duty he regarded as absolutely essential and one far transcending fill attumps to alleviate suffering and disease.

THE TWO .MAIN FACTORS. Ho talked freely to the Greeks, explaining to them tlio infinite importance of diet in relation to health mid insisting on the associated necessary evacuation of the products of digestion. These two factors, the input and the output, he showed, bore a definite relation to orio another and were of equal importance, being indeed inseparable.

Two thousand years ago be recognised, without the aid of the microscope

and without the various scientific means 'at Alexis Carrel’s disposal, the fundamental importance of this subject to tbe vitality, stature, health, and freedom from disease of the community.

He pointed out that man differed in no way from any other tanimal living in a state of nature, stud that any departure front the habits of life in either matt or any other animal as flic result of civilisation ended sooner or later in disaster.

For a certain period in the life of the infant, provided that Die child is supplied with the breast milk of a healthy, vigorous mother, citeit feed is followed by it reflex passage of Die contents along the several', portions of the gastrointestinal tract, the terminal portion being evacuated. This condiDon. which is normal and physiologic*'!. occurs throughout the entire life of savages living in normal surroundings, just as it does in all animals in Die same circumstances.

After a. short period in civilisation <a change is made in the habits of the infant, since the mother insists that the normal sequence its regards drainage slutli he most materially altered, the input of meals remaining as before. She insists that the regular reflex sequence shall he replaced by a single evacuation of the products of digestion, and this •at a certain specified time of Die day.

The result of this over-distension of tlio end of the larger bowel is that, first, extensive changes take place in thnt portion, producing obstructive changes and the damming up of material of in poisonous nature in the bowel proximal to tlio obstruction. Following on the mechanical changes is an infection of the food supply contained in the child’s intestine by the invasion of organisms from the foul contents of tlio large bowel or cesspool. DAMAGE TO CHILDHOOD.

The earlier in life those unnatural iand practically criminal changes enforced upon the unfortunate helpless infant take pl ace the greater is the damage sustained, since new formation develops in young life in an inverse proportion to the age of the infant. The result of this interference is that ehtnges arise which are the direct and indirect causes of all the depreciation, misery, and disease of cflivisn’tion, a condition from which savages are fortnnatelv permitted to escape, not being contaminnted by tlio food and habits of civilisation. 1 Take these same savages and inflict on them the diet and habits of civilisation and in that proportion you deteriorate them and render them unhealthy and exposed to all the diseases which . affect us and from which they were , perfectly free. '