DIET.
This is a subject of vast and vital importance. It comprises the science of alimentation, which forms one of the indispensable functions of life; it is thus, of necessity, a serious preoccupation under all conditions.
I have treated this important subject in my greater work with the minute detail, which it deserves; thus, in following the advice given, therein, in chapter XVIII, the reader will be able to ascertain the foods that are best suited to various conditions, and how to prepare them in the most sensible way.
At present, I can treat it only in a short and general way, giving the principal groups of diet prescribed, with more or less variation, in each case of disease as a part of the general treatment.
A few words may show why diet plays so important a part in this system of healing.
In the body there is a laboratory which produces spontaneously everything necessary to maintain life.
This laboratory has various branches which are busy day and night without interruption.
Here the life blood is created.
Prominent amongst these branches are:
The stomach with its prolonged intestines;
The liver;
The kidneys;
The lungs, and
The skin.
Each one of these branches has a distinct part, or function to perform.
The stomach serves as the sorting house. Here the food is mixed with the gastric juice which aids digestion and dissolves those ingredients necessary to produce blood, flesh, fat, bones, etc.
Each of the other branches receives that portion of the ingredients needed to perform its share of the work.
A structure cannot be constructed without a frame upon which every part depends. In order to stand erect, the body must possess such a framework. The skeleton is the same to the body as the frame is to the building. This frame, then, or skeleton, together with the flesh, blood, etc. are all formed from the material furnished by the food.
A residue of the digested food is removed from the body as useless; everything else is utilized.
The portion of the food used, therefore, must contain all those ingredients which go to make up and maintain the body in perfect working order.
Experience has suggested certain groups of suitable diet which for the sake of convenience I shall enumerate under the title of Forms No. I to No. VI.
These food forms contain everything of which patients may safely partake, and from these selection, in each case, must be made.
They are as follows:
Form I. Complete elimination of the stomach in the nourishing process.
To allay thirst, moisten the mouth with pure or carbonized water, melting small pieces of ice on the tongue. Small sips of water either lukewarm or cold, according to the condition of the stomach. Otherwise, only introduce water by clyster—i.e.—injection, and if the stomach cannot be disturbed for more than one or two days, introduce nourishing substances by way of the rectum.
Form II. Purely liquid nourishment, "soup diet."
Consommé of pigeon, chicken, veal, mutton, beef, beef tea, meat jelly (which becomes liquid under the influence of the heat of the body,) strained soups or such as are prepared of the finest flour with water or bouillon, of barley, oats, rice (thick soup), green corn, rye flour, malted milk. All of these soups, with or without any additions, such as raw eggs, either whole or the yolk only, if well mixed and not coagulated, are easily digested.
Form III. Nourishment which is not purely liquid, but partly glutinous.
Milk and milk preparations (belonging to this group on account of their coagulation in the stomach):
(a) Cow's milk, diluted and without cream, dilution with 1-2 to 2-3 barley water, rice water, lime water, vichy water, weak tea, or pure water.
(b) Milk without cream, not diluted.
(c) Unskimmed milk.
(d) Cream, either diluted or undiluted.
(e) All of these milk combinations with an addition of yolk of egg, well-mixed, whole egg, cocoa, also a combination of egg and cocoa.
Milk mush made of flour for children, arrowroot, mondanin, cereal flour of every kind, especially oats, groat soups with tapioca or sago and potato soup.
Egg,-raw, stirred, or sucked from the shell; or slightly warmed in a cup; any of these, either with or without the addition of a little sugar or salt.
Biscuit and crackers, softened or well masticated and salivated, taken with milk, mush, etc.
Form IV. Diet of the lightest kind, containing meat, but still mainly glutinous.
Mashed boiled brains or sweetbread, or puree of white or red roasted meat, in soup.
Brains and sweetbread boiled.
Raw scraped meat (beef, ham, etc.)
Lean veal sausages, boiled.
Mashed potatoes prepared with milk.
Rice with bouillon or with milk.
Toasted rolls and toast.
Form V. Light diet, containing meat in more solid form:
Pigeon, Chicken boiled.
Small fish with little fat, such as brook or lake trout, boiled.
Scraped beefsteak, raw ham, boiled tongue.
As delicacies: Small quantities of caviar, frogs' legs, oysters, sardelles softened in milk.
Salted potatoes crushed, spinach, young peas mashed, cauliflower, asparagus-tips, mashed chestnuts, mashed turnips, fruit sauces.
Groat or sago puddings.
Rolls, white bread.
Form VI. Somewhat heavier meat diet. (Gradually returning to ordinary food).
Pigeon, chicken, young deer, hare, everything roasted.
Beef tenderloin, tender roast beef, roast veal.
Boiled pike or carp.
Young turnips.
All dishes to be prepared with very little fat, butter to be used exclusively. All strong spices to be avoided.
NOTE:—For special dietary in all diseases, see under each separate tissue degeneration in the succeeding Chapter on Therapy.