Foods and dietaries : a manual of clinical dietetics / by R.W. Burnet.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foods and dietaries : a manual of clinical dietetics / by R.W. Burnet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    require. The result is a coudition of discomfort or of distress induced by the inability of their organs to excrete the amount of nitrogenous waste matter that arises from the use of such a dietary. The nitrogenous principles in foods, although primarily necessary for the maintenance and repair of the tissues of the body, are known to assist also in the production of force and heat. In the latter properties, however, they are secondary to the carbo-hydrates and fats. Life is not sustained by a non-nitrogenous diet, but the carbo-hydrates and fats when combined with albuminoids are the great force and heat producers. They do not tend to increase tissue change, and any surplus of them left in the body may be stored up against future needs. Failure on the part of the system to assimilate and elaborate its supplies of the carbo-hydrates constitutes a grave defect in nutrition, notably exemplified in the case of diabetes. The importance of fresh vegetables and fresh meats as bearers of extractives and salines, apart from their actual nutritive value, has been fully established, but is frequently overlooked in ordinary dietaries. If proof of this were wanting, we have it in the fact that evil consequences speedily follow the withdrawal from the dietary of the important vegetable salts. Such consequences reach their climax in attacks of scurvy and allied disorders. Concerning the condition of the digestive organs them- selves, it will suffice here to mention these four essentials of vigorous digestion, namely, a healthy condition of the mucous membrane, a due supply of normal gastric juice, sufficient nervous stimulus and good muscular tone to ensure proper rhythmic movements. Each of these is important in its own place, as separate consideration of them will show; and if one or all of these conditions be impaired or absent, difficulty of digestion will result, in a more or less pronounced form, according to the extent to which the defect exists.
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