HOW FOOD IS TURNED INTO BLOOD.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4284, 23 September 1882, Page 5 (Supplement)

HOW FOOD IS TURNED INTO BLOOD.

Dr Dio Lewis thus discourses the com-* plicated process by which food is turned into blood: —

, "To make the process of digestion simple, let me say that it begins in the mouth and ends in the lungs. A man swallows a mouthful of bread. We follow it from his mouth down through the oesophagus to his stomach. It now, by a peculiar motion of the muscles of the stomach, and as it touches here and there, gastric juice starts out, like sweat upon the forehead, and wets the bread. " After a couple of hours of revolving about within the stomach, the bread is changed into something that looks like buttermilk. This is chyme. Now, the gate at the right end of the stomach opens and lets this chyme pass through the first part of the intestine. There two new liquids are poured in, one from iho liver—the bile, the other from the pancreas—the pancreatic juice. These induce certain changes in the liquid bread which makes it resemble milk. Now it is known as chyle. Innumerable little mouths, which open within the intestine, suck up this milk or chyle, carrying it to a small canal —the thoracic duct, which lies in the backbone, and through it runs up to the upper part of the chest, and is poured into a large vein just under the collarbone. Through this vein it runs up to the heart, and is then forced into the lungs, where it comes in contact with the air. Now a' wonderful change comes over it. This is produced by the addition of oxygen to the milk-like fluid. For agiven quantity of this chyle, a still larger quantity of oxygen is added, and the compound which comes of this union between the bread and the oxygen is the nutriment which supplies the wants of the system. What takes place m the lungs is more important than anything that precedes it in the process of digestion,

"For example, a man may > live upon fried salt pork, hot saleratus biscuit, and strong green tea (I don't know of a worse dose(, if he lives on the Western plains and breathes pure air he will have a purer blood, a finer healthier skin, and will be freer from humors than any other man who lives upon the choicest grains and fruits, but who constantly breathes the air of a close, furnace heated house. In other words, we may truly say, that, in considering the great; function of digestion, the lungs really play a more important part than the stomach itself.

" It is really vital that the first and last steps of digestion should be well done. First, chew well, and last, breathe well. If these two dnties are well performed, a substantial contribution will be made to our welfare."