CHAPTER IX 



HYGIENE OF DIGESTION AND ABSORPTION 



83. Pure Foods. One of the most important prob- 

 lems for us to consider is how to obtain pure, whole- 

 some foods. No question is of greater moment to 

 health. Foods are often impure because they contain 

 disease germs and dangerous parasites. It is well 

 known that typhoid fever, cholera, trichinosis, and nu- 

 merous other diseases are due to impure 'foods. Meat 

 from diseased, overheated, wounded, immature, or ema- 

 ciated animals is very dangerous, and should not be 

 used for food. Fruits and vegetables unripe, overripe, 

 decayed, or stale are unwholesome, and should never 

 be eaten. Milk from cows that are diseased, or that 

 are fed on " swill milk," " distillery slops," refuse from 

 vinegar factories, garbage, and other unclean or unwhole- 

 some foods, or that are kept in overcrowded, unclean, 

 or otherwise unhygienic stables, is dangerous, and 

 should not be used for food. 



Besides being unclean and containing disease germs, 

 foods are often impure and unwholesome because they 

 have been adulterated with cheaper and less nutritious 

 substances. Every state has enacted laws which make 

 the sale of adulterated foods an offense punishable by a 



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