Health Department

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 23, 1875

Health Department.

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 3 John 2.

Regularity at Meals.

SYSTEM, method, regularity and promptness are necessary elements of success in any department of effort. Accuracy is secured in the arts, skill in mechanical pursuits, and eminence in science, by a proper regard to these conditions. The business man who meets his financial engagements a month after date, soon becomes familiar with the import of "protests" and failures, and yet it is not more certainly true of him that disaster follows a disregard of these conditions than it is of men occupying almost any position in life. He who treats this body like a worthless machine, instead of a complicated arrangement of organs and adjustments, will at some time be convinced that the violation of a law of this physical structure is certainly visited by a penalty, a penalty never averted by any amount of penitence unattended by improved habits.

This body, as a condition of health and vigor, demands exercise, succeeded by rest. If overtasked and underfed, its powers necessarily diminish, and become more or less diseased. The supply of strength and health is secured, in part, at least, by the daily food, which is designed to repair the waste occasioned by the taxing of both body and mind. Rest and sleep render this supply still more available. The regularity with which the need of rest and sleep is indicated, is shown with as much certainty in the appetite, if normal, plainly showing that our meals should be taken at stated periods.

The necessity of this regularity is not wholly based on the wants of the body as connected with the waste resulting from exercise, but in part on the fact that we are creatures of habit, while it is manifest that our constitution favors this, suggesting the idea of a regular routine, not only in regard to employments, but in all respects. The stomach, so to speak, expects its meals at regular intervals, and is able to conform to almost any reasonable arrangement. As if endowed with intelligence, it seems to demand periodical rest, while making the necessary arrangements for the next labor, the digestion of the next meal. During this time, and even before, the several glands of the mouth, stomach, etc., are engaged in the secretion of the necessary juices to aid in this digestion, making these preparations with a remarkable precision and system. And, in this connection, it may be remarked that, this supply is just sufficient to meet the wants of the body—never more than is needed, in perfect health. The stomach may, indeed, adapt itself to existing circumstances, digesting a meal in three, four, or five hours, often imperfectly, it is true, yet it seems to demand that there shall be a uniformity of the intervening periods, about the same from day to day. If, for example, the dinner hour is at 2 o'clock, instead of 12, the hunger returns at that time, the individual suffering no marked or special inconvenience by the change, after a few days, especially if the change is understood in advance, the stomach adapting itself to the temporary exigencies, at least to a certain extent. Abrupt changes are always unfavorable, always tending to derange the organs of digestion.

A certain amount of time is demanded for the digestion and assimilation of the various articles of food, varying from one hour to between five and six, while, of necessity, any material variation from the usual time of taking our meals, must produce confusion. If, for example, a meal has been taken demanding five hours for digestion, and before the expiration of that time another is taken, it is manifest that a part of the labor of the stomach must remain unperformed, a part of the food remaining in the stomach. As a necessary consequence, this undigested food mingles with the new supply, producing confusion and derangement. But still worse, ordinary food will not long remain in any warm place, of the temperature of the stomach, without undergoing the process of fermentation, proceeding to an actual decay and putrefaction. This fermentation is the direct cause of the gas in the stomach, known as "wind," and sometimes ignorantly supposed to be common air.

Of course, this fermented, putrid food never can make good blood for the nourishment of the body, but poisons it, being practically the same as eating fermented and putrid food. The same principles apply to the custom of taking luncheons, especially at bed-time. Like the body as a whole, the stomach demands rest, one or two hours at least between each meal, which is only secured by some system. If fruits, even titbits of any kinds, are taken between the usual hours of the meals, it is impossible to escape the natural penalty, the necessary taxing of the stomach, an unnatural wasting of its powers, often attended by inflammation and general disease. Indeed, that hydraheaded disease, dyspepsia, is mainly attributable to this irregularity and haste in eating, instead of being, as sometimes supposed, a "mysterious dispensation of Providence." There is no mystery about it, resulting as it does in the usual order of sequence.—The Household.