Digestion and Happiness
By John M. Tyler
A sound digestive system is the essential foundation of all clear thinking, and its condition will tinge our statement and solution of the great enigma. The same is true of our moral condition. Holiness is wholesomeness, strength; and salvation is soundness of body as well as of soul. The character of the blood depends largely, though not wholly, on the condition and work of the digestive system. If the blood is poor and thin, the muscular system is starved. We feel weak. It requires an effort to surmount small obstacles, and great ones become insuperable. We become accustomed to, and form the habit of, being defeated and thwarted. We sink into weakness, cowardice, paralysis. Only a well-fed man can bear the strain of hard and prolonged effort. And the well-fed man is not he who eats the most, but he who digests the best. The same truth applies to the brain. Only when well nourished can it do its best work. Moreover, the brain is strongly affected by nerves reporting to it from the digestive system. We all know the dreams and nightmares arising from indigestion, and are aware that a bad condition of our internal organs molds the visions of the brain into fantastic forms. But the same condition continues through our waking hours, and forms an undercurrent to our thought all the more dangerous because we are not sufficiently aware of its source to be on our guard against its influence. The objects, relations, emergencies, and possibilities of life may be correctly seen, but the mind pictures them on too dark a background. Light and sunshine are lacking. The picture is misleading and false. “A sick man, sir,” said Dr. Johnson, “is always a scoundrel.” The language is perhaps somewhat strong and lacking in charity, but it contains a good grain of truth. The dyspeptic, who sees the world given over to evil and daily growing worse, is very likely to think himself unable to swim against the current, and to drift to disaster. The dyspeptic’s views of life are not only painted on too dark a background; the objects and their relations are usually distorted. A temporary fit of indigestion often cripples the intellect. It is said that Napoleon lost a campaign because of an attack of indigestion. This may or may not be true. But many a battle in life has been thus lost. Proper cooking increases the digestibility of food, by rendering it more appetizing and more permeable by the digestive fluids. We all know that a large stick of wood is kindled with difficulty. Split into kindlings, it burns readily. The splinter offers a larger surface for contact with the oxygen of the air. So food properly prepared is opened up to the entrance and action of the digestive reagents. The same material is easily or hardly digestible according to the mode of its preparation. White of egg is ropy when raw, and hence not easily permeated by the gastric juice. Boil it slightly or beat it, and the reverse is true. Boiled hard, it remains in lumps, each one of which must be slowly attacked from its outer surface. Light bread absorbs fluid like a sponge, but a heavy, soggy article is almost as resistant as rubber. In a well-baked or boiled potato the starch grains have swollen and ruptured the sacs in which they were incased, and they float free. But, the “bone” in a half-boiled potato is almost indigestible. To digest fried ham and eggs of different degrees of leathery toughness requires a superhuman digestion. The same article of diet may be food or poison, according to the mode of its preparation. Poorly prepared food is only partially digested by the ordinary stomach. Parts of the resistant masses ferment in the intestine, and become a source of positive injury. Even the best digestive system succumbs in time to such attacks, especially if they are repeated daily year after year. Good food can be purchased by the poorest laborer. But in a vast majority of the households, especially of the poorer classes, it is spoiled in the frying pan. Many a girl is dragged and chained to the piano who would gladly spend a part of the same time in learning how to prepare an appetizing and healthful meal. But her mother considers music and painting as more important. How can we expect better cooking before we pay to this most important of all arts and sciences some of the respect which it deserves? What of the girl who will never complete even the high-school course, but will go as soon as possible into shop or factory? When she marries, she will and must cook for her family. And all that she knows about cooking and diet has been picked up. She has never heard that heavy bread can drive a man to drink; and how to make good bread, or perhaps what constitutes good bread, she does not know. Is this a wise educational system? We have an abundant food supply, but we do not know how to make a proper use of it. Here civilization has lagged. Ought we not to recognize that the proper selection and preparation of food is the most important of sciences and the most practical and valuable of all arts? Good food is the basis of good health.—John M. Tyler.