A physician, writing to the _New York Medical Journal_, says the
chemical composition of the body is quite similar to the composition
of the foods which nourish it. Protein, fats, carbohydrates, mineral
salts, and water are the compounds we need in our foods, and they
are found in flesh foods and vegetables. Protein, the most important
element, is derived principally from meat, eggs, and milk. It is
also furnished by some vegetables, as beans, peas, and the gluten of
wheat; but in these it is mixed with too much extraneous matter, as
husks, bulbs, woody fiber, etc., to be useful in the diet of the sick.
Extractives, as beef-tea, are included in the nitrogen compounds, but
they neither build tissue nor furnish energy; they are appetizers
and stimulants. Animal and vegetable fats are useful; these are
found in meat, fish, milk, eggs, some cereals, olives, and nuts. The
carbohydrates include sugars, starches, cellulose, and the fibers
of plants. Potatoes, sago, farina, and arrowroot are rich in them.
Fats should be used with caution in disease, because they retard the
formation of hydrochloric acid, which excites the pancreatic secretion,
an important factor in digestion. Man can live better without a stomach
than without a pancreas. Physicians realize that they must rely on
diet rather than drugs to cure indigestion, as the food varies in its
proportion of fat, protein, and carbohydrates; the digestive juices are
poured out or repressed and altered in strength and quantity.
Milk is not an ideal food for the sick, too large a quantity being
required, and the large curds it forms in the stomach often rendering
digestion difficult. Boiled with rice it forms an excellent diet.
In acute diseases lasting from four to six weeks no great effort should
be made at forced feeding. Thin soups, flooding the stomach with
unnutritious fluids, should be avoided. It is unnatural to take food
during physical or mental suffering. Appetite is wanting, and imperfect
assimilation adds to the physician’s worries and the patient’s
discomforts. When there is no appetite the digestive juices are absent.
Feed a convalescent when, through conversation about some dainty dish,
interest is aroused and saliva is secreted.