The Morality of Physiology

By LILLIAN R. CARQUE

Faith encourages the assimilative powers of the body, while unusual sorrow and protracted grief retard the process of assimilation, thus interfering with the nutrition of the cells. Chronic worriers and despondent patients universally suffer from deficient gastric juice and slow digestion.

Melancholy people are almost invariably dyspeptic; indeed many cases of so-called acid dyspepsia have been traced to acid mental and nervous states. Melancholic humor causes over-secretion of black bile, whose accumulations are a feature in tumors and cancerous growths.

At a meeting of the American Physiological Association some years ago evidence was offered to substantiate findings that acidity of the stomach was caused by anxiety, resentment and anger. Unrelieved, the emotional upset indicated more than a fifty-fifty chance to develop into a stomach ulcer.

Anxiety, resentment and anger were often found to double the free acid in the stomach; rage tripled it. Even after hours of relaxation and the disappearance of the acid, it was found to return in the same excess when the patient finally fell asleep. It is the corrosive secretion of acid that finally develops into stomach ulcer and often into cancer.

Normal gastric juice presents varying degrees of acidity, but it should never be corrosive. When it becomes hyperacid, it results in injury to the stomach, or in chronic gastric ulceration. The tissues are actually burned by the caustic, corrosive action of hydrochloric acid, chiefly excessive chlorine. The chlorine mineral element may be likened to the laundry of the organism; indeed chlorine is much used in the laundry industry as a germicide, deodorant and disinfectant. It plays a similar role in the human economy. Unfortunately its great germicidal properties are due to an acrid element inherent in chlorine, which exerts a pernicious influence when it occurs excessively in the human stomach.

Popular opinion assigns man's cell lives and behavior to blind, non-intelligent, mechanical physiological processes. Yet the fact remains that man is essentially a spiritual being, a living soul. He is not just physical matter and mechanistic force, or an automatic result of digestive organs, food combinations and physical breeding.

Indeed, biochemistry proves that certain mental states and emotions have an important bearing on the consumption, assimilation and distribution of special chemical elements. When a particular will impulse or emotion is unusually strong, a particular chemical element is selected by the body in greater proportions than other elements.

Succinctly, we attract to our cell lives only those elements or forces in foods which are identical in quality and character to our thoughts and emotions, i. e., which revolve at the same rate of speed or vibration as those of our own cell world. Otherwise nutrients are refused by the tissues, for there is no magnetic attraction. Cell selectivity of nutrients from the blood is not a blind, mechanical process, but one based on moral as well as physical needs. The cells choose from the blood those nutrients which feed and sustain man's bodily, mental, moral, emotional and will impulses, and thus preserve his psychic as well as physical identity.

Biochernic findings indicate that ugly moods, caustic wit, evil or excessively selfish thoughts characterize those persons whose blood reveals chlorine in excess. Such people actually crave foods abounding in chlorine, such as very salty, hot, spicy foods. Generous consumption of chlorine foods feeds their bilious or choleric disposition. The altruistic, religious and optimistic emotions are depressed in such types; they are inclined to tear down rather than to build up; their passions, anger, resentment, bitterness and suspicion are easily aroused.

When the mucous membrane is functioning normally-as it does when faith dominates the mind it secretes a mucus that lubricates, thus permitting food to pass along without scratching sensitive alimentary walls. Fear and anger cause an inadequate secretion, often a complete suppression of mucus, that gives rise to peptic and duodenal ulcerations and other erosions. That is why the Great Cosmic Intelligence has provided fruit pectin - available when we eat abundantly of raw apples, or better still when we partake of the condensed apple known as apple concentrate. It exerts a tranquilizing influence on irritated gastro-intestinal canals. Pectin, however, is not indicated as a specific for ulcers or other lesions. Doctors warn against self-medication in pathological conditions.

Fruit pectin is an exceptionally fine source of uronic acid-an important constituent of the mucous producing cell. Any shortage of uronic acid produces erosions and ulcerations. The principal constituent of mucus is a protein known as mucin. Uronic acid is an important component of mucin; in the event of a shortage of uronic acid, the mucous membrane is the first to suffer.

Insufficiently masticated foods bruise the stomach walls, particularly at the exit where motion is concentrated. The majority of ulcers develop at this opening. Some laxatives may be likened to the action of bulls let loose in a china shop. Persons suffering with colitis or any cleavage in the normally intact surfaces of the alimentary canal should avoid the use of purgatives.

A highly active gastric juice is essential for the digestion of meats. Hence hyperchlorhydria or excess gastric acidity is aggravated by an immoderate consumption of meat, which stimulates the gastric glands to secrete an excess of acid. That tireless physiologist Pavlov of the last century proved that fats of all sorts, and particularly olive oil, have a powerful influence in checking the formation of acid by the gastric glands. This is only true, however, when the fats are perfectly fresh, that is, free from butyric acid, whose presence is disclosed by a strong or rancid flavor which excites the gastric glands.

Pavlov also showed that cereals give rise to a gastric secretion which is low in acid but high in digestive power. By taking food in the form of puree, seeds and skins removed, so that no chewing is required in passing it through the mouth quickly, the gustatory nerves are only slightly stimulated and hence less gastric juice will be produced. The withdrawal of salt from the food may cause the total disappearance of acid from the gastric secretion. It is comprehensible that when it is desirable to lessen the secretion of hydrochloric acid by the stomach, the intake of sodium chloride or common table salt should be reduced to the lowest possible limit. All other condiments that excite the secretion of the gastric juice should be avoided. Milk and cream may be taken in moderation. Tube feeding is beneficial in cases of gastric and duodenal ulcer.

In the case of a stomach which is already manufacturing an excess of gastric acid, the drinking of a quantity of water may be e means of greatly increasing the difficulty. The use of broths should likewise be avoided by those whose stomachs are already producing hydrochloric acid to excess.

Even after food is properly digested and completely assimilated, it is absolutely useless to the body unless it is impregnated with oxygen. Thus oxygenation of food represents the last step in the process of digestion. The cells are actually called upon to burn up the digested food substances brought to them in the blood stream. A cheerful attitude on life intensifies the depth of the breathing and thereby insures an abundant intake of oxygen, which is taken up by the red blood cells into the lungs and carried to the remotest cell of the body. The action of the lungs during fright and anger produces superficial and shallow breathing.

That is why the oxygen molecule liberates itself from hydrogen in the water and other fluids ingested by excess-hydrochloric-acid cases, for it is so severely needed in the digestion of food. Thus hydrogen becomes the provocative isolationist and readily seeks its ruthless chlorine affinity as a rebellious ally in creating havoc in the human stomach.

Sufferers might well free themselves from the scourge of stomach ulcers if they will remember that inharmonies exist in the unfinished children of God in the same sense that imperfections exist in a masterpiece of sculpture during the process of its completion. It win express perfection when it is complete. It embodies that perfection inherently all through the process. Latent within faulty human beings are therefore all the attributes of divinity.