[A report of one experiment has been selected from Modern Medicine relative to the work of the laboratories connected with the Battle Creek Sanitarium because it relates to the effect of cooking and mastication upon food in illustration of the statement of Dr. Campbell pertaining to these aids to digestion. Much more evidence could be had from the Sanitarium reports, but sufficient has already been given herewith from various authoritative sources to justify our claims of the great importance of mouth-treatment in human nutrition.
It may be said here, however, that the trial of thorough mouth-work as an aid to digestion, which has been in progress at the Sanitarium for more than a year, and which has finally been accepted and prescribed as the first requirement of the treatment of patients, is of the utmost significance. This is, by far, the largest sanitarium in the world, having some hundreds of physicians, nurses, and other attachés, and treating many thousands of patients annually. The “cure” is based upon natural methods of recuperation, and while all of the staff, both medical and surgical, are fully equipped diplomatists, and whereas the organisation has a legally and professionally accepted medical school of its own, so-called medicines are rarely used, and never except as antidotes to specific poisons. Nature is assisted by scientific means to do the curing, and now that an economic nutrition to relieve the exhausted system of the patient from all possible strain through ample mouth-treatment of food, as intended by the anatomical, dental, and chemical plan on which man is constructed, has been tried and accepted as a fundamental principle of the institution, it gives a practical indorsement of the claims set forth in “Glutton or Epicure,” and in this present book, and declares that they are of greatest importance in securing health and efficiency.
The Battle Creek Sanitarium is a philanthropic and humanitarian institution operating under a perpetual charter which compels the use of all the profits gained to foster the spread of the humanitarian work. More than sixty branches of the parent institution have been established in or near large cities in different parts of the world, under the title of The American Medical Missionary Association, and each of these branches conducts a life-saving business on Good Samaritan principles. The organisation started its medical missionary work some thirty-seven years ago, with almost no capital and only one patient, in a small two-storey frame house, in the then small village of Battle Creek, Michigan. The incorporators were religious enthusiasts who believed that Christianity should be expressed in works as much as in faith, in curing the sick and healing the wounded, and thus preparing the unfortunate for the reception of moral and spiritual inspiration.
The best evidence that this scheme of procedure to attain the ultimate end was a good one is shown by the success of the institution in its growth from such small beginning to the immense proportions of the present time, with one of its buildings nearly a thousand feet in length and five storeys in height and numerous other buildings radiating from the main one and scattered about it in a finely wooded park. Fire came and destroyed the old building and all its contents, but yet it was soon rebuilt, and the concern goes on growing and growing, because the foundation principle of the institution is the beautiful Golden Rule, and the method of treatment employed is taken from the open book of Nature.
While the organisation was primarily based upon a special religious creedal enthusiasm, it has become so broadly altruistic as to suggest a return to original Christianity as defined in the Sermon on the Mount. In such Christian expression honest agnostics, born Buddhists, and the tolerant of all the different Christian creeds may join and say amen!
One of the splendid results of an economic nutrition, attained by following the natural requirements and impulses, is the curing of many diseases, among them several forms of constipation. The writer has a genuine admiration for the spirit that is the motive power of the Battle Creek Sanitarium and firm belief in the Christianity demonstrated in the work, especially in the private experiment of Dr. and Mrs. Kellogg, with their family of adopted waifs. Twenty-four children of unfortunate parents, waifs so unfortunate in their attractability as to be hopelessly neglected, have been gathered under this sheltering roof and are showing their mettle and gratitude by splendid behaviour and brilliant accomplishment in a manner that any proud parent might approve. To miss any opportunity to express gratitude to Dr. and Mrs. Kellogg for giving us such a splendid example of the true meaning of practical Christianity would be showing symptoms of the worst form of constipation; viz., constipation of appreciation and affection.—Horace Fletcher.]
From Modern Medicine
The table clearly shows the effect of cooking and the effect of mastication upon the salivary digestion of food. Column 1 shows the results obtained after an ordinary test meal consisting of 1½ ounces of water biscuit to 8 ounces of water; column 2, 1½ ounces of water biscuit ground fine, mixed with water and swallowed without chewing; column 3, test meal consisting of 1½ ounces of raw wheat flour and 8 ounces of water; column 4, test meal consisting of 1½ ounces of unground pearled wheat with 8 ounces of water.
| Water biscuit, well chewed. | Water biscuit, not chewed. | Raw flour. | Raw wheat. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| Total acidity (A) | 0.142 | 0.140 | 0.204 | 0.136 |
| Calculated acidity (A´) | 0.156 | 0.132 | 0.186 | 0.128 |
| Total chlorine (T) | 0.296 | 0.284 | 0.332 | 0.272 |
| Free HCl (H) | 0.050 | 0.028 | 0.056 | 0.052 |
| Combined chlorine (C) | 0.106 | 0.104 | 0.130 | 0.076 |
| Fixed chlorides (F) | 0.114 | 0.152 | 0.146 | 0.144 |
| Maltose (M) | 1.088 | 0.272 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Dextrine and soluble starch (D) | 0.812 | 0.548 | 0.300 | 0.448 |
| COEFFICIENTS | ||||
| Digestion of albumin (a) | 0.82 | 0.97 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Digestion of starch (b) | 0.71 | 0.42 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Salivary activity (c) | 1.17 | 1.11 | 1.14 | 1.37 |
| Fermentation (x) | 5.00 | 11.00 | 6.00 | 6.00 |
| Chlorine liberation (m) | 0.80 | 0.70 | 0.85 | 0.71 |
Several points of interest are to be noted in the above table, the first and most conspicuous of which is the fact that the saliva did not act at all upon the raw flour and raw wheat, as shown by the total absence of maltose in the cases represented in columns 3 and 4. The small amount of dextrine and soluble starch shown was, perhaps, already present in the raw grain, but this point I have not investigated. It is clear, however, that no sugar was produced when raw starch was taken, whereas the amount of sugar produced after the ordinary test meal was more than 1 gram in each 100 c.c. of stomach fluid; in other words, the stomach fluid contained more than one per cent of sugar without taking into account the amount which had been absorbed.
The figures for maltose in column 2 represent a test meal in which little or no saliva was mixed with the test meal, the food being swallowed without chewing, indicating very slight action of the saliva, the amount of maltose found in the stomach fluid being but a trifle more than one-fourth the amount obtained after an ordinary test meal. The amount of soluble starch and dextrine was less than half the normal amount in the case of the raw flour, and but little more in the case of the raw wheat.
Another point of interest is the increased amount of lactic acid found in the test meal taken without chewing, represented in column 2. The coefficient of fermentation which represents the number of milligrams of lactic acid (as expressed in terms of HCl) found in 100 c.c. of stomach fluid was more than double that found after the same kind of test breakfast properly masticated, represented in column 1. The results of this experiment distinctly associate acid fermentation with imperfect mastication and imperfect salivary digestion.
Another fact noted in a comparative study of the results of the analysis of over 5000 stomach fluids, which very strongly confirms this idea, is that starch conversion is usually complete in cases of apepsia, while lactic acid is conspicuous by its absence. In nearly all cases of apepsia which I have encountered, numbering about forty cases in all, the most delicate tests for lactic acid have failed to show its presence except in the most minute quantities; in most cases it was entirely absent.
There are a number of other points of interest in the above table in addition to those which relate particularly to starch digestion. One of the most noteworthy of these is the fact that the digestion of albumen was not unfavourably influenced by the neglect to masticate the food, the coefficient of digestion, in fact, being raised from .82 to .97. This coefficient is a qualitative and not a quantitative index. The higher coefficient indicates a more perfect elaboration of proteids and a close approach to an absolutely perfect proteid digestion.
Another fact of perhaps even greater interest has relation to the digestion of albumen when the wheat was eaten raw, in the form of either flour or wheat. The coefficient of proteid digestion in both cases, as shown in columns 3 and 4, was 1.00, indicating perfect elaboration of the albuminoids. From this it appears that raw gluten, or the proteids of wheat, is digested more perfectly when taken in a raw state than when cooked, the very opposite of which we have seen to be true of starch. The digestion of raw starch may take place in the intestines, by the action of the pancreatic juice, but cannot take place in the stomach, for the reason that the saliva has not the power to penetrate the cellulose envelope of the starch granule, and hence cannot digest raw starch.
This fact coincides in a most interesting manner with the biological fact that man is by nature a frugivorous animal. In the process of ripening, the starch of fruits undergoes a hydration similar to that which takes place in cooking and in pancreatic digestion, whereby the insoluble starch is converted into soluble starch, dextrine, and sugar. This explains, also, why well-ripened fruit may be eaten raw with impunity, while unripe fruit and farinaceous food of all sorts require cooking. In his diet, man, like his nearest relative, the monkey, being naturally a frugivorous animal, may eat fruits in the state in which Nature has provided them; but when he introduces other natural products into his bill of fare, he must adopt artificial means for securing the preparation for digestion which Nature makes in the ripening process of fruits.
The coefficient of chlorine liberation (m) is very nearly uniform, indicating that the mastication of food and the cooking of food have little influence upon this digestive function.
The coefficient of salivary activity (c) was determined independently for each test breakfast. Its practical uniformity indicates that there was no essential change in the character or quality of the saliva to account for the differences shown by the totals in relation to the stomach digestion of starch.