Oxygen 97 12 --
Carbon 30 -- --
Hydrogen 14 10 --
Nitrogen 2 14 --
Calcium 2 -- --
Phosphorus 1 12 190
Sulfur -- 3 270
Sodium -- 2 196
Chlorin -- 2 250
Fluorin -- 2 215
Potassium -- -- 290
Magnesium -- -- 340
Iron -- -- 180
Silicon -- -- 116
Manganese -- -- 90
There are a number of other body-elements, but they are so remote that
they have not been clearly defined by physiological chemists. All these
body-elements are nourished separately, or, as it were, individually.
They must be replenished in the body as rapidly as they are consumed
by the vital processes, and this can be accomplished only through the
action of the elements, in the forms of food, air, and water, received
into the body and assimilated by it.
[Sidenote: Where 91 per cent of human ills originate]
From my professional experience I have estimated that about 91 per cent
of all human ills have their origin in the stomach and the intestines,
and are caused directly by incorrect habits in eating and drinking. If
this is true, or even approximately true, it shows that, in its relation
to health and the pursuit of happiness, food is the most important
matter with which we have to deal; yet the average person devotes far
less consideration to it than he does to the gossip of the neighborhood,
or to the accumulating of a few surplus dollars.
[Sidenote: Eminent writers agree as to importance of diet]
Profs. Pavloff, Metchnikoff and Chittenden; Hon. R. Russell; Drs.
Rabagliati, and Wiley, Ex-Chief of our Federal Bureau of Chemistry, and
many other profound thinkers and writers have given in their various
books an array of facts which prove beyond doubt that food is the
controlling factor in life, strength, and health; yet they have given us
but few practical suggestions as to how it should be selected, combined,
and proportioned, so as to produce normal health, and especially how to
make it remedial and curative, or to make it counteract the appalling
increase in disease.