The Healthy Life Part 23

This pain is evidence of sciatica. Chills alone will not produce sciatica, which has its real cause in the system being choked up with acids and toxins of various kinds. In such a case as this, warm water enemas should be taken freely to clear the colon well; sugar, milk and all starchy mushy foods should be strictly avoided; vegetables should be taken either as baked roots or as fresh salads; eggs and cheese should be subst.i.tuted for meat; and plenty of fresh b.u.t.ter should be taken. Boiled water, _between meals_, will be good, but nothing should be given to drink with food. Salt, pickles, and greasy or highly flavoured foods should be avoided.

TEMPORARY "BRIGHT'S DISEASE" AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT.

Miss E. would like to know what kind of diet is suitable for one who has been suffering from Bright's Disease following a serious illness. Why should meat have any bad effect upon the kidneys?

She does not take it, although her medical man advises the use of it at once.

It is not an uncommon thing for people who have suffered from an acute septic fever to find alb.u.men temporarily present in the urine. This is due to the irritant action of the toxins and other poisons (which the fever is the means of ejecting) upon the structure of the kidneys. The kidneys are filters and they remove the bulk of the soluble waste of the body.

The pract.i.tioner frequently finds alb.u.menuria in cases of scarlet fever, typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc., and the object of his treatment is to prevent this condition of kidney irritation from becoming an established disease (Bright's disease).

Flesh foods, and especially meat extracts and meat soups, are the worst possible wherewith to feed these fever cases, because they throw so much extra work upon the kidneys. Meat is composed mainly of proteids. It also contains the urinary wastes and the toxins (due to fear) which were in the animal's body and on the way to elimination when it was killed.

This sufferer should take one meal per day consisting of fresh fruit only; the rest of the diet should consist of salad vegetables and finely grated raw roots, home-made curd cheese, dextrinised cereals (such as Melarvi biscuits, Shredded Wheat, "P.R." crackers, Granose biscuits, Grape-Nuts, twice-baked standard bread, etc.) and fresh or nut b.u.t.ter.

PHOSPHORUS AND THE NERVES.

W.H.H. writes:--I should be very grateful if Dr Knaggs could help me with any information or hints regarding phosphaturia. I suffer much from this troublesome complaint.

We have to remember that the nervous system is two-fold. The one, or conscious portion, consists of the brain and spinal cord, from which all the nerves or branches travel to all parts of the body and give us dominion over them. The other, or subconscious, called the sympathetic nervous system, lies on either side of the front of the spine as two long chains with centres, or ganglia, at intervals. This second system is not within our control and has to do with the regulation of our vegetative functions, including the bulk of the digestive process.

All nerves, whether they come from the brain or from the sympathetic system, ranging to their smallest terminals, are built alike of cells, and these cells secrete a complex _fatty_ substance, called _lecithin_, whose dominant element is phosphorus. This phosphorus has to be supplied to the body with food, and as food, and it cannot be properly utilised or a.s.similated by the body or used by the nerves to build up their _lecithin_ unless it is eaten in the form of organic compounds.

The tissues of the body are continually dying, as a result of work done, and are continually being replaced by fresh young tissues as needed. It is the function of the nerves to manage this work for us as well as to similarly arrange for reproduction.

In order to control the functions of the various organs and tissues and to regulate the rate at which they reproduce themselves, the nerves extend their terminal branches, not only into every tissue, but into every microscopical unit of such tissue, and the part of the cell which represents the nerve terminal is the inner structure called the nucleus.

Now it will be obvious that the more the two nervous systems are worked the greater will be their depletion of _lecithin_ and the more need there will be for fresh supplies of phosphorus in the daily food rations.

The person who works hard, whether it be manual labour or brain work, needs food and rest at intervals in order that the nerves may recuperate and replenish their stocks of _lecithin_.

A goodly proportion of uncooked foods rich in phosphorus must be supplied to make good the wear and tear, and the digestion must equally be efficient if these food-stuffs are to become a.s.similated.

Cooking of food to a large extent breaks down the organic phosphorus salts and makes them inorganic. In this state they are of but little use to the body. Poor digestion a.s.sociated with putrefactive fermentation equally converts the organic salts into inorganic ones.

These pa.s.s into the blood and are promptly eliminated by the kidneys as waste (_phosphaturia_) and thus they never reach the nerves at all.

We must remember that phosphorus is usually found in natural foods bound up with the proteid and especially with that proteid which has to do with the reproduction of the species. For this reason man instinctively resorts to the use of egg-yolks, and to the various seeds (such as nuts, wheat, barley, etc.) because of their rich phosphorus content.

These proteid-bound phosphorus salts can only be properly utilised when the hydrochloric acid of the stomach juice is well formed, for it converts them into acid salts which are readily absorbed. Therefore to ensure free absorption we must always remember to give the phosphorus-containing foods with such meals as will cause free secretion of the gastric acid.

When fermentation is active and the stomach juices are weakened the germs of the intestines rapidly break up the phosphorus const.i.tuents of the proteids and make them inorganic. Therefore the first thing to do when a person is found to be suffering from _phosphaturia_ is to stop the intestinal fermentation by a right diet, clear the bowels of their acc.u.mulated waste poisons and give the nerves plenty of rest.

Another consideration to bear in mind is that the nerves need fat wherewith to build up the _lecithin_. An excessive fermentative sourness of the stomach makes the food so acid when sent into the bowels that the bile, pancreatic and other intestinal juices cannot neutralise them, and so the fats themselves are not emulsified and digested, which fully accounts for the mental depression and debility of which these patients complain.

People who are suffering from "nerves" in any form need plenty of pure fat (fresh dairy b.u.t.ter, cream, nut b.u.t.ter, fruit-oils, etc.) and an abundance of natural fresh vegetable products at once rich in phosphorus and iron and in organic alkaline acid-neutralising earthy salts. These arrest fermentation and so enable the phosphorus and the fat to become duly a.s.similated.

CANARY _VERSUS_ JAMAICA BANANAS.

R.B., Lincoln, would like to know if there is very much difference, as regards food value, between the Jamaica and Canary banana. "I have heard it said that the Jamaica is only fit for the dust-heap. Well, I cannot very easily think it is so useless, and at the same time I have an idea that the Canary is the better of the two. I should be very pleased to know if you think there is much difference between them."

The difference between Jamaica and Canary bananas is due to the length of time necessary for them to reach us from their place of growth. It takes, I believe, nearly twice as long for a ship to travel from Jamaica as from the Canary Islands. Hence the fruit imported from the latter place can be picked in a much riper condition than would be the case with the Jamaica article. This probably accounts for the better quality and flavour of the Canary banana. Besides this the climate may have some determining influence. To say that the Jamaica bananas should be discarded because they are of a less satisfactory food value or because their flavour is less developed is uncalled for. The disparity in price is also very marked, so that the poor can readily procure the Jamaica banana where they would not be in a position to afford the better cla.s.s of fruit coming from the Canaries. I have discussed this subject in p.34 of my book, _The Truth about Sugar_.

H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.

CORRESPONDENCE.

LEYTONSTONE

_To the Editors._

SIRS,

Enclosed please find P.O. for a copy of _The Healthy Life_ to be sent to Carnegie Public Library, close to Midland Station, Leytonstone, also to The Alexandra Holiday Home, Y.W.C.A., Alexandra Road, Southend-on-Sea. At the latter home there are something like 500 to 600 visitors every year, many of whom are semi-invalids. No doubt the magazine will be scorned by many, yet I am quite certain that there are others amongst the number there who will gladly welcome the truths it teaches, and if only one or two are helped to live a more healthy and therefore more happy life, it will be quite worth while. Please do not mention my name in either case. Yours, etc., X.

There is every reason why _The Healthy Life_ should be known and read in every public library in the United Kingdom. In this we are entirely dependent upon those readers who are ready to follow the excellent example of the above correspondent. A year's subscription--2s.--is a very small price to pay for bringing the message of this magazine before the public in this way. We should like to hear from readers in all parts.--[EDS.]

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | #Back Numbers# | | | | If readers who possess copies of the first number of _The | | Healthy Life_ (August 1911) will send them to the Editors, | | they will receive, in exchange, booklets to the value of | | threepence for each copy. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+

THE

HEALTHY

LIFE

The Independent Health Magazine.

3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.

VOL. V NOVEMBER No. 28. 1913

_There will come a day when physiologists, poets, and philosophers will all speak the same language and understand one another._--CLAUDE BERNARD.

AN INDICATION.