62 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXI. No. 522 



SCIENCE: 



Published by N. D. C. HODGES, 874 Broadway, New York. 



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THE RELATION OF ALIMENTATION TO SOME 

 DISEASES." 



BT JAMES WOOD, M.D , BBOOKLTN, N.T. 



The general statement that one has partaken for a considerable 

 time of an incorrect diet gives the impression, and true, that the 

 body generally is affected, and nowhere is this more strikingly 

 seen than when acute disease attacks an organism whose habit 

 of feeding has been faulty. We have therefore the salient 

 thoughts that improper food induces abnormal functional per- 

 formance, which by continuance becomes organic; that an im- 

 proper diet lessens the chances of recovery from acute and 

 chronic conditions, and that improper alimentation prolongs con- 

 valescence from disease processes and predisposes to a diminished 

 vitality. 



The thoughc of first importance, however, is, To what extent 

 does disease depend on alimentation? This is answered by con- 

 sidering the subject of the relation of health to alimentation. 

 As a usual condition we each had given to us at birth a body 

 very well suited to continue to exist if properly nourished. Any 

 hereditary influence, with the exception of a few instances, is 

 merely a decrease in the complement of vitality. What is meant 

 by that is best illustrated in the case of consumption. It is a 

 very common error to hear both the profession and laity remark- 

 ing that consumption is hereditary. This we dispute, and on 

 the best of grounds consider the one factor of the three, a low- 

 ered vital tone only as being transmitted. This lowered vitality 

 being so often dependent on transmission makes the consideration 

 of what food should be partaken of by progenitors of the race 

 their most important thought if we desire to give to our offspring 

 a constitution capable of withstanding the adverse influences 

 met with in life. This can be done only by using a diet whose 

 quantity and quality bear a proper relation to each other. Why 

 you ask? Because the single cells and their sum the body does 

 not remain in an unchanged condition: there are two great phe- 

 nomena constantly taking place in each individual cell. Nature 

 calls for such a quantity of proteid matter as, when appropri- 

 ated by the organism, will meet the daily nitrogenous expenditure 

 as shown by the excretion of the normal amount of urea. The 

 intake of oxygen and food meets the demand on the part of the 

 various cells for nutritive pabulum to carry on the anabolic or 

 constructive processes of the body. 



The second phenomenon commences with combustion or oxi- 

 dation, and passes through a long series of destructive or kata- 

 bolic phases to the formation of nitrogenous metabolites, "and 

 this process is carried on in an organism with an activity which 

 is dependent on the activity of the living substance itself, and on 

 the quantity of material supplied to it." 



The discharge of these products of katabolic metabolism is 



' A portion ot a paper read before the regular meeting of the New York 

 Academy of Anthropology, Jan. 17, 1893. 



termed excretion. From a study of these we are enabled, as it 

 were, to glance back over the whole series of vital processes and 

 ascertain in which one there exists an abnormality. 



To continue in perfect health, therefore, such food products 

 must be partaken of which shall insure the perfect functional 

 workings of the body, supply elements to carry on vital action 

 and give material to build up degenerated tissue, or, to be more 

 general, we must supply each day the needs of the body which 

 have been brought about by its activity. More than this quan- 

 tity or such as is improper in quality will act as a deleterious 

 agent and destroy to that extent vitality. The subject of the 

 use and misuse of vitality is very large, and we must, to be brief, 

 consider it as an element whose quantity is limited, depending 

 largely on the physical condition of our ancestors. We have 

 such a proportion given us as will, with proper care, last us for the 

 natural allotment of years. To misuse it means succumbing to 

 disease before our time, just as the athlete by the expenditure of 

 such a large amount of vitality each day in the perfect training 

 of his muscular organs uses more than can be formed for any 

 length of time by the transforming powers of the organs of diges- 

 tion. "When these become used up then he, of necessity, must die. 

 Had these organs been the study of successive generations, the 

 standard of their power to produce vitality could have been raised 

 and physical and mental vigor prolonged and increased. 



As we have before stated, there must exist an equilibrium be- 

 tween production and destruction if we will have perfect health. 

 The condition of production is dependent solely on the quantity 

 and quality of the food; and when we consider that the whole 

 process of animal life is a constant metamorphotic progression, 

 only limited by the varied isomeric forms which the nutritive 

 elements are capable of assuming under the pressure of organic 

 influences, we are capable to some extent to appreciate what 

 a great influence the nature of the nourishing bodies must have 

 on a continued normality. 



If we use up a large part of the oxygen of the body by oxidiz- 

 ing a diet composed largely of the starches, sugars, and fats, we 

 will hare but aa insufficient amount left for the complete trans- 

 formation of the food ingested into its kenitic or final products. 

 It was shown in an article written for Merck's Bulletin of last 

 year that these products of suboxidation of the proteids belonged 

 to the most poisonous agents of which we have any knowledge, 

 i. e., ptomalns, leucamains, etc. The absorption of these products 

 of but partial oxidation, leads to a profound state of malnutrition, 

 with all its accompanying symptoms and sequelee. 



Jaksch, in his investigations, found that in anaemia the pre- 

 cursors of uric acid in the blood united in that fluid instead of 

 the renal epithelium, so greatly were the functions of the body at 

 fault. 



Is it not evident in this condition that we have a frequent 

 source for the derangements of bodily action and disease? 



By the suboxidation of the proteid foodstuffs from the inges- 

 tion of large quantities of the corbohydrates, which is the general 

 evil, we have another cause or predisposing factor besides the 

 ptomainic poisoning to a certain distinct line of abnormal condi- 

 tions. 



If the quantity of food ingested is too large, we have, from the 

 inability of the system to transpose such a large bulk completely, 

 the same conditions as above, or a quantity beyond what nature 

 demands exhausts the limited oxygenating capacity of the blood 

 and causes the appropriation of that oxygen which should go for 

 the complete transformation of the more diflicult nitrogenous 

 compounds. Thus, from an incomplete oxidation of these latter 

 compounds, we get but partial metabolic changes; derangement 

 of the organs of secretion and excretion rapidly follows, which 

 in turn gives products antecedent to perfect metamorphosis, and 

 the final result is a systemic poisoning. 



Thus we see if a larger quantity of food is eaten than can be 

 perfectly oxidized in the body, and especially if the starches, 

 sugars, and fats be in preponderance, imperfect results of general 

 bodily o.xidation must take place. If this supra-feeding should 

 continue fora certain time, with its resultant incomplete products, 

 a devitalization of the protoplasmic elements of the hepatic cells 

 occurs, with serious deterioration of the most imiortant func- 



