It is fully evident, therefore, that the bran does not act on the digestive organs as a mere mechanical irritant; for if it did, it would always necessarily aggravate, rather than alleviate diarrhœa. Nor does it relieve diarrhœa on the principle of a narcotic nor of a stimulant; for the effect of these is always to give an immediate check to that complaint; and in such a manner as to expose the system to a return of it. But the coarse wheaten bread seems to increase the disease for a short time, at first, and then gradually restores the healthy condition and action of the bowels.
The mucilage of wheat bran is probably one of the most soothing substances in the vegetable kingdom, that can be applied to the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels.
Chronic constipation and chronic diarrhœa, both spring from the same root. Where the constitutional vigor of the alimentary canal is very considerable, continued irritations, resulting in debility, will produce constipation; and these continued causes operating for some time, will often induce such a state of debility and irritability as is attended with diarrhœa:—and in other cases, when this constitutional vigor of the alimentary canal is much less, diarrhœa is far more readily induced, and rendered chronic.
Coarse wheaten bread, then, by its adaptation to the anatomical structure and to the physiological properties and functional powers of our organs, serves to prevent and to remove the disorders and diseases of our bodies, only by preventing and removing irritation and morbid action and condition, and thereby affording the system an opportunity of recovering its healthy and vigorous action and condition. And the thousands of individuals in our own country of every age—of both sexes—of all situations, conditions and circumstances, who within the last six years have been benefited by using the coarse wheaten bread, instead of that made of superfine flour, are living witnesses of the virtues of that bread.
But the testimony in favor of coarse wheaten bread as an important article in the food of man, is by no means limited to our own country nor to modern times.
In all probability, as we have already seen, the first generations of our species, who became acquainted with the art of making bread, continued for many centuries to employ all the substance of the grain, which they coarsely mashed in their rude mortars or mills. And even since mankind began, by artificial means, to separate the bran from the flour, and to make bread from the latter, the more close and discerning observers among physicians and philanthropists, have perceived and asserted, that bread made of fine flour is decidedly less wholesome than that made of the unbolted wheat meal.
Hippocrates, styled the father of medicine, who flourished more than two thousand years ago, and who depended far more on a correct diet and general regimen, both for the prevention and removal of disease, than he did on medicine, particularly commended the unbolted wheat meal bread, “for its salutary effects upon the bowels.” It was a fact well understood by the ancients, that this bread was much more conducive to the general health and vigor of their bodies, and every way better adapted to nourish and sustain them than that made of the fine flour. And accordingly, their wrestlers and others who were trained for great bodily power, “ate only the coarse wheaten bread, to preserve them in their strength of limbs.” The Spartans were famous for this kind of bread; and we learn from Pliny that the Romans, as a nation, at that period of their history when they were the most remarkable for bodily vigor and personal prowess and achievement, knew no other bread for three hundred years. The warlike and powerful nations which overran the Roman Empire, and finally spread over the greater part of Europe, used no other kind of bread than that which was made of the whole substance of the grain; and from the fall of the Roman Empire to the present day, a large proportion of the inhabitants of all Europe and the greater part of Asia, have rarely used any other kind of bread.
“If you set any value on health, and have a mind to preserve nature,”—said Thomas Tryon, student in physic, in his “Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness,” published in London, in the latter part of the fifteenth century,—“you must not separate the finest from the coarsest flour; because that which is fine is naturally of an obstructive and stopping quality; but, on the contrary, the other, which is coarse, is of a cleansing and opening nature, therefore the bread is best which is made of both together. It is more wholesome, easier of digestion, and more strengthening than bread made of the finest flour. It must be confessed, that the nutrimentive quality is contained in the fine flour; yet, in the branny part is contained the opening and digestive quality; and there is as great a necessity for the one as the other, for the support of health: that which is accounted the worst is as good and beneficial to nature as the best; for when the finest flour is separated from the coarsest and branny parts, neither the one nor the other has the true operations of the wheat meal. The eating of fine bread, therefore, is inimical to health, and contrary both to nature and reason; and was at first invented to gratify wanton and luxurious persons, who are ignorant both of themselves, and the true virtue and efficacy of natural things.”
“Baron Steuben has often told me,” says Judge Peters, “that the peculiar healthfulness of the Prussian soldiers, was in a great measure to be attributed to their ammunition bread, made of grain, triturated or ground, but not bolted; which was accounted the most wholesome and nutritious part of their rations.”[[C]]
“The Dutch sailors, in the days of their naval glory, were supplied with the same kind of bread.”