oil, or fat, is more difficult of digestion, and more obnoxious to the stomach, than any other alimentary principle. Indeed, in concealed forms, I believe it will be found to be the offending ingredient in nine-tenths of the dishes which disturb weak stomachs. Many dyspeptics who avoid fat meat, butter, and oil, unwittingly eat it in some concealed form. Liver, the yolk of eggs, and brains, such individuals should eschew, as they abound in oily matter.”
“The influence of heat on fatty substances effects chemical changes, whereby they are rendered more difficult of digestion, and more obnoxious to the stomach. Hence those culinary operations in which fat or oil is subjected to high temperatures, are objectionable.”
“Fixed oils give off, while boiling, carbonic acid, an inflammable vapor, and an acrid oil, called Acroleon, while the fatty acids of the oil are, in part, set free. It has always appeared to me that cooked butter proves more obnoxious to the stomach than cooked Olive oil. This I ascribe to the facility with which, under the influence of heat, the acrid, volatile acids of butter are set free. The fat of salt pork and bacon is less injurious to some dyspeptics than fresh animal fats. This must depend on some change effected by curing.”
“In many dyspeptics, fat does not become properly chymified. It floats on the stomach in the form of an oily pellicle, becoming odorous, and sometimes highly rancid, and in this state excites heartburn, disagreeable nausea, eructations, and sometimes vomiting. It appears to me, that the greater tendency which some oily substances have than others to disturb the stomach, depends on the greater facility with which they evolve volatile, fatty acids, which are for the most part exceedingly acrid and irritating. The distressing feelings excited in many dyspeptics by mutton fat, butter, and fish oils, are, in this way, readily accounted for. Butter contains no less than three volatile, fatty acids, namely—the butyric, capric, and capröic. Fats, by exposure to the air, become rancid, and in this state are exceedingly obnoxious to the digestive organs. Their injurious qualities depend on the presence of volatile acids, and in part also on non-acid substances.”
These statements show the reasons why the fried food of all kinds is injurious. Fat is an unhealthful aliment, and when heated becomes still more so. This mode of cooking, then, should be given up by every housekeeper, who intends to take all reasonable means of preserving the health of her family. There are an abundance of other modes of preparing food, without resorting to one which involves danger, especially to children and invalids, whose powers of digestion are feeble.
The most common modes of preparing unhealthful food, is by frying food, and by furnishing bread that is heavy, or sour, or so newly baked, as to become clammy and indigestible when chewed. Though there are many stomachs that can for a long time take such food without trouble, it always is injurious to weak stomachs, and often renders a healthful stomach a weak one. A housekeeper that will always keep a supply of sweet, light bread on her table, and avoid oily dishes, oily cooking, and condiments, will double the chances of good health for her family.
Minuteness of division is a great aid to easy digestion. For this reason food should be well chewed before swallowing, not only to divide it minutely, but to mix it with the saliva, which aids in digestion.
The cooking of food, in most cases, does not alter its nature; it only renders it more tender, and thus more easily divided and digested.
When a person is feverish and loathes food, it should never be given, as the stomach has not sufficient gastric juice to secure its digestion. The practice of tempting the sick by favorite articles, should therefore be avoided.
LIQUID ALIMENTS, OR DRINKS.
“Water” says Dr. Pereira, “is probably the natural drink of all adults. It serves several important purposes in the animal economy:—firstly, it repairs the loss of the aqueous part of the blood, caused by evaporation, and the action of the secreting and exhaling organs; secondly, it is a solvent of various alimentary substances, and, therefore, assists the stomach in digestion, though, if taken in very large quantities, it may have an opposite effect, by diluting the gastric juice; thirdly, it is a nutritive agent, that is, it assists in the formation of the solid parts of the body.”
The health of communities and of individuals is often affected by the nature of the water used for drink, and it is therefore important to know how to secure pure and good water.
Rain water is the purest of all water, purer than the best spring water. Of course every person who fears that the water used is the cause of any evil, can obtain that which is known to be pure and good. The cheapest mode of obtaining good rain water, is to have a large cistern dug in the vicinity of some large building, with conducting spouts. This can be lined with water lime, and the water thus obtained, when cooled with ice, is as pure as any that can be found.
A distinguished medical writer, Dr. Cheyne, remarking on the effects of foreign substances in water, states these facts:—
“At the Nottingham Assizes, July, 1836, it was proved on trial, at which I was a witness, that dysentery, in an aggravated form, was caused in cattle by the use of water contaminated with putrescent vegetable matter, produced by the refuse of a starch manufactory. The fish were destroyed, and all the animals that drank of this water became seriously ill, and many died. It was shown, also, that the mortality was in proportion to the quantity of starch made at different times, and that when the putrescent matter (of the manufactory) was not allowed to pass to the brook, the fish and frogs returned, and the mortality ceased among the cattle.”
Dr. Barry, an English physician, states, that when the troops at Cork were supplied with water from the river Lee, which, in passing through the city, is rendered unfit for drinking by the influx from sewers, Mr. Bell suspected that a dysentery, prevailing at the time, arose from this cause. Upon assuming the care of the troops, he had a number of water carts to bring water from a spring, and did not allow the use of river water, and very shortly the dysentery disappeared.
Sir James McGregor states, that, at one time in the Spanish war, when during three months 20,000 dead bodies were interred at Ciudad Rodrigo, all those exposed to emanations from the soil, and who were obliged to use water from sunken wells, were affected by low malignant fevers, or dysenteries.
This shows that burying in large towns affects the health of the inhabitants, first by emanations from the soil, and secondly by poisoning the water percolating through that soil.
Many such facts as these, show the importance of keeping wells and cisterns from the drainings of sinks, barn-yards, and from decayed dead animals. And it is probable that much sickness in families and communities has been caused by neglecting to preserve the water pure, that is used for drink and cooking.
Water is sometimes rendered unhealthful by being conducted through lead pipes, or kept in lead reservoirs, or vessels. It is found that the purer the water, the more easily it is affected by the lead through which it passes. When the water has certain neutral salts in it, they are deposited on the surface of the lead, and thus protect from its poisonous influence. Immersing a very bright piece of lead for some hours in water, will show whether it is safe to use lead in conducting the water. If the lead is tarnished, it proves that the water exerts a solvent power, and that it is unsafe to employ lead in carrying the water.
The continued use of water containing lead, gives rise to the lead cholic, or painter’s cholic, and if the water is still drank, palsy succeeds. One indication of this disease is a narrow leaden blue line on the edge of the gums of the front teeth.
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