Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

We have learned that there is a stomachic digestion and an intestinal digestion, the former principally for meats, or that class which are now called nitrogenous foods, while the latter is confined generally to starches and fats. This physiological fact suggested the idea of feeding dyspeptics only on such food as is not acted upon in the stomach, but passes beyond that cavity to become digested in the small intestines, giving the stomach a rest as it were so that it may recuperate and gain strength while the system is being fed by farinaceous aliments. While a superficial glance justified such a procedure, a moment’s reflection proves it to be a delusion, and for this reason, that there will be an unavoidable irritation of the stomach which the journey of the farinaceous material occasions in its passage through the stomach, and the insufficient nutritive value of a simple non-nitrogenous diet causes a rapid loss of tissue and bodily strength; hence this course proved itself impracticable and was abandoned. Then again the experiment was tried of putting a certain class of dyspeptics on a purely meat diet; this had one fault common with the former plan; it was also too one-sided, and the system suffered for want of fat and starch, and secondly peptones were not always formed in the stomach from a deficiency of the gastric juice or an impairment of its quality, so that this method was also abandoned.

Fats belong to the starches and sugars as heat producers; they are insoluble in water, and by boiling them in caustic alkali they are decomposed into soap and glycerine. In the cavity of the stomach fats remain unaltered; the heat of the stomach may melt or liquefy them, but in no other way are they changed. They are also digested, like the starches, in the small intestine by the action of the pancreatic juice which possesses the remarkable property when brought in contact with fatty or oily matter at the temperature of the body of emulsifying it, and of converting the fats into a milky, white, opaque looking fluid, by a minute subdivision of the oily particles. This emulsion of the fatty and other substances of the food is termed chyle, and as such, the fatty substances are ready for absorption by the absorbents of the intestinal tract. Experience teaches that a deficiency of fat causes scrofulous diseases, and this class of patients have generally a repugnance for fat; this is another illustration of the unreliability of patients to choose their own food. Professor John H. Bennet first pointed out the usefulness of cod liver oil in consumption and other scrofulous diseases, and directed attention to the value of fat in the nutrition of the body.

Dr. Ferguson made extensive observations on the little children of the factory operatives of Lancashire, Eng. The children were principally fed on tea or water and bread, little or no fat, bacon, butter or cream, and they grew up into puny and stunted men and women, while those who had a bread and milk diet grew into hardier and finer human specimens.

Fat is also an essential food for the brain and general nervous system; the lean are the nervous patients and not the fat and sleek, hence fatty food is considered an important diet for this class of diseases. The brain and nerve fat is called “lecithin” and a little phosphorus enters into its composition. Chronic obstinate neuralgia has often been cured by the administration of cod liver oil.

Milk is the only single article of diet which possesses in itself all the properties to supply the wants of the system, and it may be profitable to give this subject more than passing notice. It is the natural and most wholesome food for the infant when it can suck it from its mother’s breast; instinctively the newborn rolls its little head hither and thither in search for this fountain of infantile life and however great the skill of the chemist in approaching the composition of mother’s milk, he can never produce an equally good substitute. Milk contains all the principles which are necessary for human food, the nitrogenous, the oleaginous and the saccharine, and these are blended in such proportion that milk is adapted for the complete nourishment of the young and old. In no other single substance supplied by nature does a similar combination exist; it contains the material for the consolidation of bone and for the formation of the red blood corpuscles, by carrying in solution the phosphates of lime, magnesia and iron; in this respect an analysis of milk shows a remarkable similarity to blood. The proportions of the different constituents of milk are liable to great variations and are greatly influenced by the nature of the food.

Dr. Playfair of London, who has made some interesting researches regarding the milk of the cow, has demonstrated that the amount of butter depends in part upon the quantity of oily matter in the food and in part on the amount of exercise which the animal takes; and upon the warmth of the atmosphere in which it is kept. Exercise and cold weather eliminate the oily matter or butter, in the form of carbonic acid and water, while rest and warmth diminish this drain by favoring its passage into milk. On the other hand, the proportion of the cheesy matter is increased by exercise.

In Switzerland, where the cattle pasture in very exposed situations and where, from the rolling of the country, they are obliged to use a great deal of muscular exertion the quantity of butter yielded by the cows is very small, while the cheese is in unusually large proportions; but the same cattle when stall fed give a large quantity of butter and very little cheese.

The character of the food will decide the nature and healthfulness of the milk. The best food for milch cows is bran or middlings mixed with well-seasoned and sweet-cut hay, and this mixture thoroughly scalded and saturated with boiling water; a little flaxseed oil cake, should be added occasionally, for it enriches the milk and keeps the cattle in good condition; during the day the cows should be in the open air; they should not be irritated by dogs, or made to run or trot; these things will affect the milk injuriously. To feed cows on kitchen garbage or swill of any sort will taint the milk so that the offensive odors of the swill can be readily detected, especially after the milk has stood awhile; such milk is particularly dangerous to infants and should at once be discontinued. Distillery slops are often fed to cattle in large cities; these are not only productive of poisonous milk but also injure the cattle so that they become salivated and lose their teeth after a few years of this diet. Brewers’ grains are not open to the same objection as whisky slops; a certain proportion of brewers’ grains added to the cut food increases the flow of milk. In all large towns there are families who keep one or two cows and who sell the milk as a means of making a livelihood: as a rule these cattle are fed on swill, and not upon the best quality of food, and although this milk is recommended as being pure and one cow’s milk, it is as a rule not good, for the stalls and the food do not come up to the requirements for wholesome milk.

I have always found a healthier and purer milk from the dairies run on a large scale, and outside of the centers of population. The cattle look healthier, have better food, good pasturage and pure country air, and if the milk is properly chilled or cooled off before it is poured into the wagon cans, country dairy milk is to be greatly preferred over city milk. The animal heat should have left the milk before it is put into cans for transportation, for it is the animal heat in tightly closed vessels which causes the chemical changes that encourage the development of organic milk poisons or so-called ptomaines.