FULNESS OF BREAD by David Paulson, M.D.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 17, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 20.

"FULNESS OF BREAD."

By David Paulson, M.D.

LET us consider another root of modern Sodom's trouble, and this is the fulness of bread. Eze. 16:49. With reference to such stimulants as meat, tea, and coffee, people do not know the wrath that they are heaping up for themselves when they are partaking of these things. It is stimulation that many want, not nutrition, but the Bible tells us to eat for strength and not for drunkenness.

I have been in some of the most wretched homes in New York, houses where they did not have bread for their children to eat, but I have never failed to find a tea or coffee-pot steaming on the stove. They get stimulation from that and call it strength. They are spending their money for that which is not bread. Dr. Haig expresses it well in the following words: "All stimulation is wrong, and thus we merely enjoy to-day by mortgaging to-morrow; and just as we rise a few inches above our normal level, so shall we fall to-morrow exactly the same amount below it."

When God says the weak shall be made strong He means they shall live in a way that they shall become strong, and that is not merely a temporary stimulation. When God says the strong shall become weak, He means that it will be the result of their own actions.

Emerson says, "Punishment is the fruit that ripens unsuspected in the flower of the pleasure that concealed it." The man and woman who go on eating these stimulating foods, and imagine they are having a good time, are ripening the fruit of punishment right in the very flower of the pleasure, as it were.

There is another important thought to consider in the study of this question, and that is the use of condiments and spices. In reference to these I quote a statement from a well-known author: "Our tables should bear only the most wholesome food, free from every irritating substance. The appetite for liquor is

encouraged by the preparation of food with condiments and spices. These cause a feverish state of the system, and drink is demanded to allay irritation. On my frequent journeys across the continent, I do not patronize restaurants, dining-cars, or hotels, for the simple reason that I can not eat the food that is provided. The dishes are highly seasoned with mustard and pepper, creating an almost intolerable thirst. They irritate and inflame the delicate coating of the stomach." These condiments and spices irritate the lining of the stomach, thus causing a desire for drink.

I was one day in a large city, and a prominent man asked me to take dinner with him at a magnificent hotel. It was the place where the governor and many of the senators were in the habit of eating. I thought surely that here would be something that one could conscientiously eat. But there were barely three articles that I could consistently partake of upon that richly-laden table. And that table illustrates the way the world is eating.

If I take condiments and spices into my stomach, I know that it has the effect of a mustard plaster. At one time in one of my studies before the Sanitarium nurses' training-school I sprinkled a little mustard on the back of one of the student's hands, and then placed a hot

bag over this for a few moments, and the result was a blister as large as a dollar, and it did not get well for a long time, and no doubt the scar is there to this day. Yet I did not sprinkle half as much mustard on her hand as people often put on a single piece of meat and put it directly into their stomachs.

These spices do not change when eaten any more than ground glass would, and that is the great cause for "appendicitis," which is getting to be so common. These spices lodge at the veriform appendix, and act as a sort of mustard plaster, and then when this is inflamed, of course other things lodge there, and the result is appendicitis. Then people say it is caused by eating the very things that God has said were good for us. They attribute it to eating fruits with seeds in them, such as grapes. Of course after the veriform appendix is inflamed by the use of condiments and spices, these seeds might then lodge there.

Now if these things would blister the outside skin, what will they not do in a greater degree to the tender lining of the stomach?—It inflames this lining and causes a thirst which water does not quench. Children have this thirst created in them by the way their mother's table is set. By and by they find out that the village saloon will quench the thirst in a way the town pump fails to do. A mother's tears will save many from quenching their thirst at the saloon, but the saloon is open to welcome them, and they soon find it out. Before they wish to drink, they must first have the thirst created. So if man is hungering and thirsting for anything he will be filled. If a man hunger and thirst after righteousness, he will be filled. The Bible says so. The same is true of the man who hungers and thirsts after liquor. The law of cause and effect is as sure in one case as the other.

It is plain that, altho these spices and condiments do not make the drunkard, they create the necessary conditions for one. These things enter largely into the diet of children. Are we simply to pick at the leaves, or shall we get at the root of society's troubles? Can it not be readily seen that the preparation of these foods lies at the very foundation of intemperance? DAVID PAULSON, M.D.