HYGIENE OF DIGESTION 141 



rules established by proper authorities should be followed. If 

 one suffers from overweight or underweight, his diet should be 

 regulated professionally and not by quack methods. All kinds of 

 diets are in vogue; namely, milk diets, raw-food diets, cooked- 

 food diets, vegetable diets, and fruit and nut diets. As a rule, 

 most, if not all of these, should be questioned and avoided by 

 the average person unless a competent physician has done the 

 prescribing. Otherwise, a diet might be selected that would be 

 detrimental rather than beneficial in many instances. The use 

 of patent medicines of all kinds should usually be avoided. Some 

 people decide they have too much acid in their systems and take 

 an alkali like bicarbonate of soda to counteract it. In many cases, 

 bicarbonate of soda stimulates the production of more acid. 

 Others decide they lack gastric juice and buy artificial gastric 

 juice or pepsin and hydrochloric acid to aid digestion. This may 

 interfere with the proper production of natural gastric juice. Still 

 others believe a physic taken once a week is invaluable. This 

 may get the system so used to drugs that in time it will not be 

 able to function without artificial stimulation. Headaches, due 

 to digestive disorders, are cured by getting rid of the cause of the 

 disturbance, not by headache powders. 



Briefly stated, normal digestion is our heritage. If habits of 

 eating the proper foods and defecation are regular, digestion will 

 usually be normal. The best way to clear up indigestion is to find 

 out the cause of the irregularity and correct it. 



Questions and Suggestions 



1. If the kinds or classes of enzymes are amylases (starch-split- 

 ting), proteases (protein-splitting), and lipases (fat-splitting), classify, 

 in their right classes, all the enzymes that you have studied. 



2. Discuss the different causes for the stimulation of the flow of 

 digestive juices. 



3. Discuss the importance of peristalsis in eliminating the solid 

 wastes of the bod v. 



