Papers on Health

by John Kirk

Nourishment.—Nothing is more required in healing than properly to nourish the enfeebled body. In its commencement proper nourishment demands a proper mixture of food and saliva. In fever, if there be little or no saliva present, food requiring much saliva to fit it for digestion only injures. This is the case with so-called rich foods, especially. Excessive thirst usually marks this deficiency of saliva. Always consider carefully the flow of saliva before feeding a patient in a weak state. Get the mouth to "water" somewhat before giving food. We have seen a cold cloth changed several times over the stomach start the flow of saliva almost miraculously, relieving the thirst, and prepare for nourishment which could not be taken before.

Going further into the matter, we see that very likely the stomach requires assistance to dispose of even well-salivated food. There may be a lack of gastric juice. In this case, frequent and small quantities of hot water supplied to the stomach will greatly help it. A wineglassful of hot water taken every ten minutes for two, four, or ten hours will be sufficient (see Digestion; Indigestion). It is well to think ten times of the readiness of the system to digest, for once of the food to be taken. If the stomach be either burning hot or cold and chilly, let it be cooled or warmed, as the case may be. Either use cold towels or give hot water as above, as the case demands. When it is brought into something like a natural state of feeling, you may then give food. The hot water will often not only prepare the stomach, but will start the flow of saliva in the mouth, and that even when the cooling cloth has failed to do so.

A medical man will, at times, forbid water, however thirsty the patient may be. He is not unlikely to be labouring under a serious mistake. It may be just the want of water which is causing the very symptoms which he thinks to cure by withholding it. We never saw anything but suffering arise from withholding water from the thirsty.

Milk is a prime element in nourishing the weak. Mixed with its own bulk of boiling water, or even with twice as much, it is immensely more easy to digest. The simple water is of vast importance, and the milk mixed with boiling water is quite a different substance for digestion from the fresh pure milk. It is better to have a teaspoonful of milk and water really digested than a pint of rich milk overloading the stomach.

Many persons put lime-water into the milk to make it digestible. In doing so they put a difficulty in the way, in the shape of the lime. If one tries to wash his hands in "hard" water, he sees how unfit that water is to do the proper work of water in the blood and tissues of the body. Now, it is not difficult to meet this evil where the only water to be had has a great deal of lime in solution. Boiling this water makes it deposit much of its lime. If a very, very small bit of soda is mixed with it in the boiling, it lets down its lime more quickly and completely.

Alcoholic drinks—wine, porter, or ale—are often given as means of nourishment. They are hurtful in the extreme, as the spirit contained in them spoils, so far as it acts, both the saliva and the gastric juice. Rum and milk, sack whey, and other such preparations are equally bad, and have killed many a patient.

While suitable nourishment is necessary for the sick, great care should be taken to avoid giving too much. Often the amount of food the patient requires or can assimilate is exceedingly small. Injudicious attempts to "keep up the strength" by forcing down food that cannot be digested often destroy the little that remains, and remove the only hope of cure. (See also Assimilation; Biscuits and Water; Blood; Bread; Buttermilk; Child-Bearing; Constipation; Diet; Drinks; Dyspepsia; Foods; Heartburn; Infants' Food.)

Nourishment, Cold in.—If a person is in fever, and is burning with internal heat, a little bit of ice, sucked in the mouth, gives great relief. The relief is got in this way: the melted ice, in the form of water, is little in bulk in proportion to the heat which is absorbed in melting it. To absorb the same heat by means of merely cold water, would imply a great amount of water, and an inconvenient filling of the stomach. The heat used up in melting the small bit of ice is great, and the amount of water exceedingly small. This gives benefit without inconvenience; hence, to suck a bit of ice is to be much preferred in such a case to taking a drink of cold water.

Within proper limits, beyond all question, cold is, in certain cases, essential to nourishment. For example, in a case of thirst such as we have noticed, the heat of the stomach extending to the mouth is drying up all the juices that should go to secure digestion and assimilation. The saliva is dried up, and the gastric juice equally so. Cold is applied to the pit of the stomach (not ice, but a moderate degree of repeated cold), and the result is, these juices begin to flow. Nourishment is the consequence, and very clearly, in such a case, it is the consequence of cold. In other words, it is the result of reducing the excessive internal heat, and leaving something like the proper degree behind.

The place which cold has in nourishing is, so to speak, negative—that is, it is useful only in reducing overheating. But when we remember how a frosty morning sharpens appetites and makes the cheeks glow with ruddy health, we see that such reduction of overheat is not infrequently required.