Yes, women can be saved much suffering even during pregnancy. If they study this work intelligently, practicing the precepts therein given, they will ever be thankful for the light and hope obtained.
CHAPTER IV.
DISEASES OF PREGNANCY—INDIGESTION—NAUSEA, ETC.
The most common ailments of pregnancy are dyspepsia, nausea, vomiting, constipation, headache, heartburn, flatulence, salivation, diarrhœa, piles, greedy appetite, loss of appetite, longings, neuralgia, toothache, cramps, swellings of the extremities, pain in the side, insomnia, drowsiness, palpitation of the heart, leucorrhœa, pruritus, etc.
Indigestion or dyspepsia is the most frequent complaint afflicting the human family. It is at the foundation of almost every other disease, many of the above symptoms of pregnancy being attendant upon and caused by it. Men and women in every station of life are more or less subject to it; few are entirely exempt. “A good digestion turneth all to health.” Indigestion is usually attributed entirely to a failure of the stomach to perform its functions. The term is also applied to a defect in any of the assimilative operations throughout the digestive tract. The limits of this work will not permit a dissertation upon these processes and their abnormal conditions.
In passing, however, let me say while there are many causes of dyspepsia, there is no one more potent than the common attempt to nourish the body from food which cannot be digested in the stomach. The principal articles upon which the acid gastric juice has no effect are starch and fats. They can be rendered soluble in alkaline fluids only, which are the saliva, pancreatic juice and the bile. By partaking of the starch and fats to excess, the stomach is overtaxed in expelling them, besides which the body fails to get elements of nutrition in proper proportions from them.
The natural food of the infant contains no starch, the carbonates of milk being sugar and butter. Usually the first solid food given to a child contains little else but starch, such as bread from white flour, and potatoes, rendered more indigestible by the addition of butter and rich gravies. These are lacking in nitrogenous and saline products, consequently the muscles, bones and nerves may not be nourished.
A substitution of the products of the entire wheat, barley, oats and other grains would obviate this difficulty, and lessen the frightful mortality of children. Dr. Bellows says: “So perfectly ignorant are people generally of the laws of nature that they give their pigs the food which their children need to develop muscle and brain, and give their children what their pigs need to develop fat. For example, the farmer separates from milk the muscle-making and brain-feeding nitrates and phosphates, and gives them to his pigs in the form of buttermilk, while the fattening carbonates he gives to his children in butter. He sifts out the bran and outer crust from the wheat, which contains the nitrates and phosphates, and gives them also to his pigs and cattle, while the fine flour containing little else than heating carbonates, he gives to his children. Cheese, which contains the concentrated nutriment of milk, is seldom seen on our tables, while butter, which contains not a particle of food for brain or muscle, is on every table at all times of day.”
Cheese, when digested, furnishes more muscle-feeding properties than any other food, and hence is desirable for working men, and all people engaged in out-door pursuits, but should be taken as food, not as a relish only.
The elements digested in the stomach are fibrine (its type found in lean meat), albumen, casein, gluten of the grains, and the nitrogenous principles of fruits and vegetables.
These are the elements that build up the muscles, while the carbonaceous elements, such as sugar, starch and fats, by combination with oxygen, furnish animal heat. Too much of the latter tend to produce inflammatory conditions, and should be partaken of moderately by all people who do not lead an active out-door life.