1906.] DIETETIC VALUE OF FOODS. 269 



How often we hear the remark that a child is " a natural 

 born imitator," and so he is. He observes his parents at the 

 table, as they hastily consume their food, and thinks he is 

 privileged to slight himself in the same v/ay, which he straight- 

 way proceeds to do with an alacrity often surprising. 



In all that I have heretofore said I have tried to impress 

 upon your minds the fact that the digestion of food begins with 

 its perfect mastication. Our teeth were given us by the Divine 

 Creator for the purpose of grinding our food, and by so doing 

 to prepare it for the stomach's digestion. It seems, with many, 

 so difficult a thing to remember that it's the action of the jaws 

 that causes the salivary glands to work and that it is their di- 

 gestive secretions upon which so much depends. After food 

 is swallowed it is beyond man's control. The- muscular walls 

 of the stomach do their best to convert into nourishment that 

 which is given them to digest, and if they fail in their task 

 we alone are to blame. 



The digestive secretions of the stomach being acid these se- 

 cretions can only act upon the proteid foods or such foods as 

 the lean of meat and fish. Eggs, milk, cheese, and the gluten 

 of wheat, peas, and beans are also acted upon by this acid se- 

 cretion, as is the proteid of nuts. Starchy foods are not di- 

 gested in the stomach, nor changed by its acid secretions at all, 

 as their digestion begins in the mouth by the action of alka- 

 line secretions. The secretions of the mouth and of the lower 

 stomach, or duodenum, being alkaline they produce the form 

 of ferment necessary to digest starch and which converts it 

 into a form of sugar assimilable as nourishment. 



From all this you cannot fail to perceive the great necessity 

 of a perfect mastication of food if you would avoid digestive 

 disturbances. Hot muffins, biscuits, griddle cakes, and all 

 other doughy substances, even though well masticated, pro- 

 duce irritating eflfects in the stomach. They form, by its 

 action, a doughy ball impossible for the digestive secretions to 

 penetrate. The next step in the digestion of food is when it 

 passes on and out into the duodenum, where the starch of the 

 food is acted upon by the secretions of the bile and pancreas 

 and by these secretions converted intO' sugar. 



When the stomach is overtaxed by an improper selection 

 of food, or by over-eating, its digestive forces naturally weaken 

 and it is but a step to dyspepsia. The taxing of it with hot, 



