After years of study and research, Metchnikoff found this beneficient germ in various lactic acid forming microbes, particularly an especial microbe known by the name of Bulgarian bacillus, or Yogurt. This bacillus grows in milk, and in growing it produces large quantities of pure lactic acid. It does not decompose fats, nor does it produce alcohol, as do other lactic forming germs, such as those found in kumyss, matzoon, and kephir.
Milk is first sterilized by boiling for a few minutes, then allowed to cool and a quantity of the ferment is added. In a few hours a sour taste which is pleasant to all whose palates relish mild buttermilk, is developed. Metchnikoff advises that a pint or a pint and a half of this sour milk be taken daily. By this means large quantities of the acid forming and beneficient germs are taken into the intestine, and by degrees the poison producing germs are killed or driven out. Thus the work required of the kidneys, the liver, the skin, and other excretory organs is lessened, and the vigor of the living cells is maintained so that the macrophages do not attack and destroy them.
In Bulgaria where Yogurt is a staple article of food, there are more centenarians, and more vigorous old people to be found than anywhere else on earth. Not only are the Bulgarians and the Hungarians the longest lived races in Europe, but they show a remarkable freedom from appendicitis, colitis, and other diseases due to intestinal infections, circumstances which called the attention of European physicians to a study of the milk ferment which produced Yogurt, and led to the scientific investigations, first by Masson of Geneva and later and more completely by Metchnikoff and Kellogg, which have placed its use both as a curative and a preventive agent upon a thoroughly scientific basis.
Its use is bound to supersede that of kumyss, kephir, matzoon, and other lactic acid ferments on account of the fact that these ferments are able to live only in the small intestine, while Yogurt bacillus thrives in the colon, where it may be found weeks after the administration of Yogurt has ceased. The importance of this fact will be seen at once when it is recalled that the colon is the chief seat of the anaerobic infection and poison production which are the causes of intestinal autointoxication. Thus the last word of modern science on this subject would seem after all to be but the confirmation of a means for reaching natural old age which has been known for hundreds of years. But to-day we are learning to use means for the prolongation of life by the light of knowledge; no longer blunderingly, handicapped by evil habits which nullify the value of the small fraction of hygienic truth which we possess. To-day, Hygeia, while it holds out to our lips an elixir of life, insists that if it is to have its maximum power, we must also breathe rightly, sleep rightly, and eat and drink rightly.
VI
SOME IMPORTANT FOOD FACTS
The importance of avoiding constipation will be obvious to those who have followed this account of the process of autointoxication; one should see that his daily bill of fare contains a generous supply of laxative foodstuffs, such as sweet fruits, ripe figs and prunes, acid fruits and fruits juices, fresh vegetables, fats and all grain preparations. It is of the utmost importance that the bowels should move regularly once a day. There is another reason for eating food in the shape of fruits or salads, which is that the body may have a sufficient supply of mineral salts.
Nuts and fruits are a splendid combination, since the fat of the nuts and the sugar of the fruits supply the energy and heat producing substances. Fruit sugar indeed is merely a digested form of starch—the digestive process having been accomplished by the heat of the sun in the ripening of the fruit. Fruits contain no fat and practically no starch, and with the exception of the fig, the banana, and a few others, they contain so small an amount of proteid that that element may be considered practically missing. Fruits are used for the sugar, the acids, and the water they contain. Nuts and fruits may be eaten and digested raw by persons who have sound teeth, and who will thoroughly masticate these foods.
Bananas should never be eaten until they are completely ripe, this condition being shown by the appearance of black or dark brown spots on the skin. When in this condition they are usually thrown into the garbage can by the fruit dealer.
Before eating them, one should scrape off the outside fluff, which is next to the skin, as experiments have shown this to be highly indigestible. Eaten when ripe no fruit is more nutritious or delightful than the banana. The only way in which unripe bananas should be used is baked, the same as apples, when they make a succulent and nutritious dish.
Sweet apples will digest more quickly than any other raw fruit substance; but if eaten raw, apples should be thoroughly ripened, and most thoroughly masticated, else hard pieces of apple will enter the stomach and give rise to fermentation. A mealy apple is considered by physiologists as a food substance almost completely predigested, and ready for absorption. If such an apple is reduced to a smooth pulp by chewing, it will pass out of the stomach within an hour. Baked, sweet apples are digested by persons whose stomachs will not tolerate any other fruit.