Digest

“ The mouth, the pharynx, the œsophagus, the stomach, and other digestive apparatus through­out the long winding circle through which the food passes on its way to the heart, must digest and transmute the whole mass so as to eliminate every nutritive particle from it. ”

“ It is well to think ten times of the readiness of the system to digest, for once of the food to be taken. If the stomach be either burning hot or cold and chilly, let it be cooled or warmed, as the case may be. ”

“ The natural consequence is, that we educate the stomach to demand more food than the system requires, and more than it can itself continue to digest; and hence the numerous evils which we daily witness as fruits of indigestion. ”

“ Because the power of the stomach to digest food is governed by the amount of food required by the system. It seems to be an instinct of the stomach to hold back food which is in excess, and by indications of pain and disturbance to warn its master that excess has been committed. ”

“ All the strength we possess is ultimately derived from the food, which we are able to digest; whence a total debility of the system frequently follows the want of appetite, and of the power of digestion. ”

“ The process, of digestion, as I have been informed by anatomical friends, is one of the most wonderful works of nature. I do not know how it may be with others, but it is a great satisfaction to me to know, when regaling on my humble fare, that I am putting in motion the most beautiful machinery with which we have any acquaintance. ”

“ That quantity that is sufficient, the stomach can perfectly concoct and digest, and it sufficeth the due nourishment of the body.
A greater quantity of some things may be eaten than of others, some being of lighter digestion than others. ”

“ It is not easy to explain the work of the leaves, nor even to understand the wonderful work accomplished there all through the summer. When we eat, our food must go into the stomach to be changed by the processes called digestion. It is hours before the digested food is poured into the blood and carried to all parts of the body. ”

“ But you can’t ignore the importance of a good digestion. The joy of life—you know the joy of life?—depends on a sound stomach, whereas a bad digestion inclines one to scepticism, breeds black fancies and thoughts of death. ”

“ When you intend to draw essences, the ingredients must unavoidably be prepared by means of the digestion. In order to draw well the spirits and essences from spices digestion in again there of an absolute necessity. In short, digestion enters necessarily in our principles, and is an indispensable one itself. ”

“ The fact is, the lower part of the tongue is supplied with nerves in close sympathy with the digestion. If the food which has been passed by the two previous examiners is found here to be simple and digestible, it is permitted to go on unchallenged; if it is found to be too rich, too bilious, or too indigestible, a protest is promptly entered against it, and if we are wise we will immediately desist from eating any more of it. ”

“ In a manner essentially similar, mental activity tends to hinder the digestive process for a considerable time; and I believe, more especially, the digestion of the very substances that are often selected as brain-food par excellence. ”

“ An hour of exercise to every pound of food.—We are not nourished by what we eat, but by what we digest.—Every hour you steal from digestion will be reclaimed by indigestion.—Beware of the wrath of a patient stomach!—He who controls his appetite in regard to the quality of his food may safely indulge it in regard to quantity.—The oftener you eat, the oftener you will repent it.—Dyspepsia is a poor pedestrian; walk at the rate of four miles an hour, and you will soon leave her behind.—The road to the rum-cellar leads through the coffee-house—. ”

“ Digestion signifies the act of separating or distributing, hence its application to the process by which food is made available for nutritive purposes. The organs of digestion are the Mouth, Teeth, Tongue, Salivary Glands, Pharynx, Esophagus, the Stomach and the Intestines, with their glands, the Liver, Pancreas, Lacteals, and the Thoracic Duct. ”

“ Digestion is that act by which the aliment or food is prepared, so as to produce a good chyle, and consequently good blood, for the nourishment of the body. Though no animal has a more delicate stomach than man, yet it must be observed, that none has a stomach better adapted for all kinds of food. ”

“ The stomach and other hidden parts of the body have automatic functions independent of the will that perform digestion; these functions are beyond the scope of control, and hence means of preventing ill-digestion must be studied by the aid of the exterior sensations. ”

“ A peaceful mind, pleasurable anticipation, freedom from care and anxiety, cheerful companionship, all form desirable table accessories which play the part of true psychical stimuli in accelerating the flow of the digestive juices and thus pave the way for easy and thorough digestion. ”

“ The digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavour to account for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord, and with a view or 135intention to the purposes of circulation or digestion. ”

“ For a human body no ways resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk's bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare. But even from hence, that is, from the smoothness of the tongue, and the slowness of the stomach to digest, Nature seems to disclaim all pretence to fleshy victuals. But if you will contend that yourself was born to an inclination to such food as you have now a mind to eat, do you then yourself kill what you would eat. ”

“ Scientific pathology illustrates the digestion of spiritual nutriment as both sweet and bitter, — sweet in expectancy and bitter in experience or during the senses' assimilation thereof, and digested only when Soul silences the dyspepsia of sense. ”

“ An agent acting upon the mucous membrane of the mouth, stomach, or intestine, may produce in the nervous system important effects as regards digestion, and yet we may have no sensation of this either through taste or through smell, its parts not entering into communication with the central organ of sensation. ”

“ Like food incapable of digestion, and which lies in the stomach only stimulative of disease, he remained in the body politic a foreign element, without opportunity or power of assimilation, and a perpetual source of alarm. ”

“ If digestion is the effect of organs, fluids and forces, then the student of nature's law must be governed by well known truths, such as the location of the brain, connection of the nerves to other organs, bringing all parts interested in digestion in mental view. ”

“ By the sound of the Grinding is meant some natural symptoms which are expressive of digestion, and prove that all things are right in the bodily frame, which a want of digestion would prove to the contrary. ”

“ In like manner, spiritual food is first received into the external memory (the mind’s mouth) , under the form of science, and being there well masticated by thought and meditation, and afterwards swallowed, or forced more interiorly into the mind, is thus submitted to rational consideration, for the purpose of digestion. Material food again, when well digested in the stomach, undergoes a separation of its parts, so that what is salubrious is absorbed, and thus admitted more intimately into the body, whilst what is noxious is secreted, and thus cast out. ”

“ Before, however, commencing a description of the organs concerned in digestion, it will be useful to take a general view of the different stages of preparation through which the food passes, between its reception into the stomach and its assimilation, or ultimate conversion into a constituent part of the animal body, and becoming endowed with the properties of life. ”

“ For instance, when a lesson in history has been only memorized, the digestive process has been carried little further than physical digestion has been taken when food reaches the stomach. That is, it is barely begun. Yet very many young people stop near this point, and they sometimes even take credit to themselves for getting so far. ”

“ But we find that humors, blood, flesh, &c. will be sometimes more, sometimes less, according either to feeding, or to digestion, which digestion is a contribution of food to every several part of the body for its nourishment; and when there is a decay of those parts, then it is caused either by fasting, or by irregular digestion, or by extraordinary evacuation, or by distempered matter, &c. all which, causes sickness, paleness, leanness, weakness, and the like. ”

“ By long-continued and careful study of the apparatus and processes of digestion, the physiologist has discovered the general plan by means of which food is converted into the substance of the body, and the part which each portion of the complicated digestive system takes in the maintenance of daily life. ”

“ The influence of the mental emotions on the digestion is so great that it is important that the conversation at meals should be as cheerful as possible, and no unpleasant subject should be discussed: anything that disturbs the appetite disturbs the digestion also. ”

“ We call this digesting our food; more properly we should call it being digested by our food, which reads, marks, learns, and inwardly digests us, till it comes to understand us and encourage us by assuring us that we were perfectly right all the time, no matter what any one might have said, or say, to the contrary. ”

“ To he fully acquainted with digestion, one must know hoth its antecedents and consequents.
INGESTION. Appetite, hunger, and thirst, warn us that the hody needs restoration; pain, that universal monitor, never ceases to torment us if we do not obey it.
Then comes eating and drinking which are ingestion, an operation which begins as soon as the food is in the mouth, and enters the oesophagus. ”

“ So, also, if the stomach be actively engaged in digesting a full meal, and some subject of thought be presented to the mind, considerable difficulty will be felt in pursuing it, and most probably both thought and digestion will be disturbed. ”

“ Hygiene of Digestion.—With the stomach and other digestive organs in a state of perfect health, one is entirely unconscious of their existence, save when of feeling of hunger calls attention to the fact that food is required, or satiety warns us that a sufficient amount or too much has been eaten. Perfect digestion can only be maintained by careful observance of the rules of health in regard to habits of eating. ”

“ In eating, he masticates his victuals very much, taking small pieces, as the passage to the stomach would not admit of any great repletion, and in drinking the same precaution is required, otherwise suffocation would ensue. His digestion is extremely good, and the consequent functions of nature are regularly performed. ”

“ Not only so, but, with our increasing refinement, the progress of digestion to successful issues demands that the senses of man be ministered to in order that there be no interferences in the central nervous system, and every encouragement given to the latter to furnish the necessary nervous impulses to the digestive organs and the tissues in every part of the organism: for it is not enough that food be digested in the ordinary sense ”

“ The State of Mind has much to do with the proper digestion of the food. Worry, anger, fear, and other disturbed mental states are known to check the secretion of fluids and to interfere with the digestive processes. While the cultivation of cheerfulness is important for its general hygienic effects, it is of especial value in relation to digestion. ”

“ In the normal act of digestion, the consciousness of that act is wanting. Most persons engaged in active life fail to give the proper amount of time to eating and digestion; for this natural and physiological action to be performed with the ease and perfection of detail which Nature, in her arrangement of the means for such an end, intended, deliberation must accompany the eating, and rest of mind and body the digestion of food. Haste when eating, and activity, bodily or mental, during the digestive process, are fatal to the object for which food is taken. ”

“ Digestion is a huge, unappreciated task, unappreciated because few of us are aware of its happening in the same way we are aware of making efforts to use our voluntary muscles when working or exercising. Digestion begins in the mouth with thorough chewing. If you don"t think chewing is effort, try making coleslaw in your own mouth. ”

“ Here is a physiological eye-opener, as it dawns upon the business physiologist. The obvious inference is that if the head can make digestion easy or stop it altogether, the stomach being a subservient, mechanical, and chemical servant of the head in the matter, we may properly declare that the master-key of digestion is held by the head, and we may safely say that there is Head Digestion. ”

“ If this state continues it deranges, at first insensibly, the digestive functions; the secretions change, the appetite is impaired, and the digestion becomes capricious; sharp pains are felt; they grow worse day by day, and more frequent ”

“ Before entering upon the consideration of the theory of digestion which naturally evolves itself from the facts expounded in the preceding chapter, it may be of advantage to turn for a moment to the various theories which have prevailed since the subject first attracted the attention of the learned. ”

“ Thus the habitual manner in which digestion is performed or affected, makes us either sad, gay, taciturn, gossiping morose or melancholy, without our being able to doubt the fact, or to resist it for a moment.
In this respect, humanity may be arranged under three categories ”