The Healthy Life Part 17

for sauce; 4 P.M., cup of dried milk; 6 P.M., a little green salad with St Ivel lactic cheese (size of one large walnut); 9 P.M., cup of dried milk. Do you think dried milk is harmful to me? I should miss it very much were I to leave it off. I must mention how great a help _The Healthy Life_ magazine is to me in many ways.

Neuritis is a painful and wearying form of nerve trouble which mostly affects the arms and legs. It can, however, originate in any other part of the body through the spinal nerve centres. It may sometimes be due to injury, but the usual cause is some form of thickening or misplacement of the spinal structures, which induces pressure upon the nerves as they emerge through the apertures between the spinal bones.

A careful examination of the back will show the site, and often the nature, of the thickening or enc.u.mbrance which is present.

In our correspondent's case the thickening process doubtless occurred as an after effect of the attack of rheumatic fever.

The best remedy is suitable osteopathic treatment for the spine, supplemented by _either very_ hot or _quite_ cold spinal sitz baths, by acetic acid skin treatment, or by any other means which will have the effect of disenc.u.mbering the spine. By means of our treatment we free the painful nerves from harmful pressure and promote an increased blood circulation in the parts affected. In this way the cause of the disorder is removed.

A diet along the following lines would be better than the present one:--

8 A.M.--Tumblerful of hot distilled water.

9.30.--One raw egg beaten up with cream and vegetable juice or clear vegetable soup made without salt. Wholemeal bread with plenty of b.u.t.ter and some celery or watercress.

1.30 P.M.--Two conservatively cooked vegetables done without salt, with grated cheese as sauce and a Granose biscuit with b.u.t.ter.

4.--Tumblerful of hot distilled water only.

6.30.--2 oz. of cottage cheese or cream cheese, salad and Granose biscuits, or "P.R." crackers, with b.u.t.ter.

9.30.--A raw egg beaten up with cream and vegetable juice or soup.

I think dried milk preparations are inadvisable in such cases as these (especially when taken as beverages, as the "milk sugars" present are very p.r.o.ne to ferment and to hinder the cleansing of the digestive tract), and that the required proteid is best obtained from eggs and curd cheese. Fat is very necessary in nervous troubles; hence plenty of cream, fresh b.u.t.ter and cream cheese should be taken; also pure oil with the salad.

MALT EXTRACT.

L.F.H. writes.--Is malt extract a good thing to take daily with an ordinary non-flesh diet, two teaspoonfuls or so at breakfast?

And is the desiccated or dry malt extract to be preferred to the ordinary sticky article?

Malt extract of good quality, containing an active form of diastase, is a good form of relish to take with meals. The diastase promotes starch digestion and makes a good addition to foods of the cereal order. The thick sticky form is the best because the diastase is then in an active condition. Dried malt usually will have this diastase destroyed, hence, although much more convenient to handle, it is not so good dietetically as the sticky original extract.

ABOUT SUGAR.

C.T. writes.--I have read the article on sugar with considerable interest. I have noted nervous disorders, etc., manifest in cases of excessive consumption of manufactured sugar. I have been an abstainer from cane sugar (all commercial sugars, though _I do not know of any objection to milk, sugar_) for many years, regarding it as an unnatural excitant and stimulant as well as being inimical to digestion. As a physiologist I have taken immense interest in longevity, feeling that an active life past the age of ninety-five or a hundred, and upwards, carries with it, in evidence of right living, the force of demonstration, and more conclusively, in direct ratio to the advance of years. I firmly believe that all anomalies will ultimately admit of resolution. In this connection I could mention a number of strange and paradoxical cases for which, as yet, I have obtained no solution. I know of centenarians who began using "sugar"

freely late in life. In one case, when past eighty, a new set of teeth (not odd "supernumeraries") appeared all round! How is it, again, that the natives of the West Indies, when living on sugar (in its crude state, I suppose) have excellent teeth and perfect health? Is not raw sugar better the less manufactured it is? On the other side, Captain Diamond, at 114, attributes his health in great measure to abstinence from sugar.

Most of these queries are answered in the completed book[10] published this year. The point about "milk sugar" not being injurious he will find answered on page 72.

[10] _The Truth about Sugar_, 1s. net. (C.W. Daniel, Ltd.)

"Milk sugars" taken to excess with a mixed diet, or in the form of milk as a beverage, break down into lactic, butyric and other destructive acids under the influence of intestinal germs and thus do harm to the body.

The natives of the West Indies (page 39) take the sugar cane in its natural state as a living vegetable food--a very different thing from the isolated and chemicalised sugar on our tables at home. Moreover, the chewing required helps digestion. This is very different to the drinking rapidly of sugared beverages, which do not receive this necessary mouth preparation.

One is quite prepared to admit that paradoxical cases do occur where sugar seems to agree well even with octogenarians, but they are, in my opinion, the exceptions, and I am constantly coming across cases where the free consumption of table sugars has proved very harmful to both old and young.

ULCERATION OF THE STOMACH.

A.L.M. writes.--Our domestic servant, a girl aged twenty-four, is suffering from ulceration of the stomach and has had periodical attacks for the past six years. She has apparently, until she came to us, eaten and drunk very unwisely. She has been with us seven months and has been fed on a non-flesh diet since she came.

For the last four weeks tea, coffee and cocoa have been forbidden, and as little sugar is consumed as possible. She had a very bad attack in August and we had to call in a doctor is we did not like the responsibility. He strongly recommended the hospital and an operation, which would ensure that there would be no repet.i.tion of the complaint. She decided to go and was there six weeks. After much experimenting there, inoculating and wondering whether it was tuberculosis, they operated and in due course she came back. We went to the sea for three weeks and shortly after our return the vomiting of blood and pains recommenced. After four days in bed she returned to light dishes, and a fortnight after another slighter attack came on, which in twenty-four hours. She takes hot boiled water five times a day.

She suffers also from a h.o.r.n.y skin on the palms of her hands, with deep cracks where the natural lines are. These periodically bleed. This skin exists also on her heels and the soles of her feet. Before and after, an attack this skin seems to be worse than ever.

I mentioned the fact of the recurring attacks since the operation to the doctor and he seemed surprised and said the matter must be const.i.tutional and there was no hope for her.

My own opinion is that pure food will put her right eventually, and that these attacks will recur in diminis.h.i.+ng force until the poisons are eliminated front the system.

Her diet is at present as follows:--

_On rising._--Half-pint of boiled water (hot).

_Breakfast._--Either Shredded Wheat softened in hot milk or breakfast flakes and cold milk: followed by either bananas or apples. Half-pint boiled water (hot).

_Lunch._--Ordinary vegetarian cooked dishes, vegetables conservatively cooked, some fruit. Half-pint boiled water (hot).

_Tea meal._--Wholemeal bread (Artox flour), usually non-yeast, nut b.u.t.ter. Lettuces and radishes when obtainable. Half-pint boiled water (hot).

_Before retiring._--Half-pint of boiled water (hot).

It has been shown by Brandl and other investigators that ulceration of the stomach can always be produced in animals by feeding them with an excess of sugar foods. The same thing applies to human beings, who, if fed with an excess of sweetmeats, sugar, milk or soft mushy cereals, will first contract catarrh of the stomach, which will ultimately deepen into a condition of ulceration.

The rationale of the process is this: Fermentation and putrefaction of the foods eaten to excess produce in the stomach various acids and toxins. These become absorbed and pa.s.s into the liver. Then the liver becomes clogged, its flow of blood is obstructed and this naturally r.e.t.a.r.ds the flow of food from the stomach. That organ becomes congested and inflamed and, when the lower end, or pylorus, is obstructed, this congested state may easily deepen into ulceration. We also nearly always find a tender spine, showing that the nervous system has equally partic.i.p.ated in the conditions produced, and this nervous factor intensifies the trouble by r.e.t.a.r.ding the due working of the digestive functions.

What we have to do to cure a case of ulcerated stomach is _to withhold the foods which create fermentation_. Then the liver will be allowed time to work off the poisons which are clogging its substance and when this has come about the stomach will slowly return to its normal condition.

The diet which our correspondent cites is badly arranged. It is a mistake to give fluid _with_ the meals, and the mushy food at breakfast and the soft food at dinner should be changed to drier and crisper forms of nutriment.

The following diet would be a distinct improvement:--

_On rising._--Half-pint of boiled hot water, sipped slowly; or quarter-pint Sanum Tonic Tea, taken hot.

_Breakfast._--A Shredded Wheat biscuit _eaten dry_ and well b.u.t.tered; a lightly boiled egg and some finely grated raw roots, especially carrots and turnips.

In a case of this sort it is best not to mix cereals with fruits.

An alternative breakfast would consist of _fruit alone_ such as two apples, finely grated at first, or two bananas mashed and mixed with pure olive oil and sprinkled with flaked nuts but care must be taken that the pulped banana is well chewed.

_Lunch._--Grated cheese, or cream cheese, with some finely chopped salad, or grated raw roots, or conservatively cooked vegetables (preferably roots or onions baked fairly dry by the ca.s.serole method) can be taken at this repast. Follow with a slice or two of cold ordinary toast or rusks with b.u.t.ter.

_Tea meal._--Half-pint of hot boiled water with a little lemon or orange juice added to it for flavouring.

_Supper_ (about 6.30).--Stale standard bread with b.u.t.ter and curd cheese or an egg. The non-yeast bread should be avoided as in the weak state of the stomach it will not be properly digested; besides, the bran may irritate the lining in the present condition of the stomach.

As soon as the stomach has regained its power of digesting food, and the ulcers have healed, then fine wholemeal biscuits of the Wallace or Ixion kind can be taken, but the unfermented bread had better be avoided.

_At bedtime._--A half-pint of hot water.