The Journey Down The Food Tube
Categories: THE FOOD-FUEL OF THE BODY-ENGINESources: A Handbook Of Health
The Flow of Saliva and Appetite Juice. We are now ready to start
some food-fuel, say a piece of bread, on its journey down our food tube,
or alimentary canal. One would naturally suppose that the process of
digestion would not begin until the food got well between our teeth;
but, as a matter of fact, it begins before it enters our lips, or even
before it leaves the table. If bread be toasted or freshly baked, the
mere
sight of food, as in a pastry cook's window, with the glass between us
and it, will start up this preparation for the feast.
This flow of saliva in the mouth is of great assistance in moistening
the bread while we are chewing it; but it goes farther than this. Some
of the saliva is swallowed before we begin to eat; and this goes down
into the stomach and brings word to the juices there to be ready, for
something is coming. As the food approaches the mouth, a message also is
telegraphed down the nerves to the stomach, which at once actively sets
to work pouring out a digestive juice in readiness, called the appetite
juice. This shows how important are, not merely a good appetite, but
also attractive appearance and flavor in our food; for if this appetite
juice is not secreted, the food may lie in the stomach for hours before
the proper process of digestion, or melting, begins.
The Salivary Glands. Now, where does this saliva in the mouth come
from? It is poured out from the pouches of the cheeks, and from under
the tongue, by some little living sponges, or juice factories, known as
salivary glands.[2]
All the juices poured out by these glands, indeed nearly all the fluids
or juices in our bodies, are either acid or alkaline. By acid we
mean sour, or sharp, like vinegar, lemon juice, vitriol (sulphuric
acid), and carbonic acid (which forms the bubbles in and gives the
sharp taste to plain soda-water). By alkaline we mean soap-like or
flat, like soda, lye, lime, and soaps of all sorts. If you pour an acid
and an alkali together--like vinegar and soda--they will fizz or
effervesce, and at the same time neutralize or kill each other.
The Use of the Saliva. As the chief purpose of digestion is to prepare
the food so that it will dissolve in water, and then be taken up by the
cells lining the food-tube, the saliva, like the rest of the body
juices, consists chiefly of water. Nothing is more disagreeable than to
try to chew some dry food--like a large, crisp soda cracker, for
instance--which takes more moisture than the salivary glands are able to
pour out on such short notice. You soon begin to feel as if you would
choke unless you could get a drink of water. But it is not altogether
advisable to take this short cut to relief, because the salivary juice
contains what the drink of water does not--a ferment, or digestive
substance (ptyalin), which possesses the power of turning the starch
in our food into sugar. As starch is only very slowly soluble, or
meltable, in water, while sugar is very readily so, the saliva is of
great assistance in the process of melting, known as digestion. The
changing of the starch to sugar is the reason why bread or cracker,
after it has been well chewed, begins to taste sweetish.
This change in the mouth, however, is not of such great importance as
we at one time thought, because even with careful mastication, a certain
amount of starch will be swallowed unchanged. Nature has provided for
this by causing another gland farther down the canal, just beyond the
stomach, called the pancreas, to pour into the food tube a juice which
is far stronger in sugar-making power than the saliva, and this will
readily deal with any starch which may have escaped this change in the
mouth. Moreover, this sugaring of starch goes on in the stomach for
twenty to forty minutes after the food has been swallowed.
Starchy foods, like bread, biscuit, crackers, cake, and pastry, are
really the only ones which require such thorough and elaborate chewing
as we sometimes hear urged. Other kinds of food, like meat and
eggs--which contain no starch and consequently are not acted upon by
the saliva--need be chewed only sufficiently long and thoroughly to
break them up and reduce them to a coarse pulp, so that they can be
readily acted upon by the acid juice of the stomach.
Down the Gullet. When the food has been thoroughly moistened and
crushed in the mouth and rolled into a lump, or bolus, at the back of
the tongue, it is started down the elevator shaft which we call the
gullet, or esophagus. It does not fall of its own weight, like coal down
a chute, but each separate swallow is carried down the whole nine inches
of the gullet by a wave of muscular action. So powerful and closely
applied is this muscular pressure that jugglers can train themselves,
with practice, to swallow standing on their heads and even to drink a
glass of water in that position; while a horse or a cow always drinks
up-hill. This driving power of the food tube extends throughout its
entire length; it is carried out by a series of circular rings of
muscles, which are bound together by other threads of muscle running
lengthwise, together forming the so-called muscular coat of the tube.
By contracting, or squeezing down in rapid succession, one after
another, they move the food along through the tube. The failure of these
little muscles to act properly is one of the causes of constipation and
biliousness. Sometimes the action of the muscles is reversed, and then
we get a gush of acid, or bitter, half-digested food up into the mouth,
which we call heart-burn or water-brash.
The Stomach--its Shape, Position, and Size. By means of muscular
contraction, then, the gullet-elevator carries the food into the
stomach. This is a comparatively simple affair, merely a ballooning out,
or swelling, of the food tube, like the bulb of a syringe, making a
pouch, where the food can be stored between meals, and where it can
undergo a certain kind of melting or dissolving. This pouch is about the
shape of a pear, with its larger end upward and pointing to the left,
and its smaller end tapering down into the intestine, or bowel, on the
right, just under the liver. The middle part of the stomach lies almost
directly under what we call the pit of the stomach, though far the
larger part of it lies above and to the left of this point, going right
up under the ribs until it almost touches the heart, the diaphragm only
coming between.[3] This is one of the reasons why, when we have an
attack of indigestion, and the stomach is distended with gas, we are
quite likely to have palpitation and shortness of breath as well,
because the gas-swollen left end of the stomach is pressing upward
against the diaphragm and thus upon the heart and the lungs. Most cases
of imagined heart trouble are really due to indigestion.
The Lining Surface of the Stomach. Now let us look more carefully at
the lining surface of the stomach, for it is very wonderful. Like all
other living surfaces, it consists of tiny, living units, or body
bricks called cells, packed closely side by side like bricks in a
pavement. We speak of the mucous membrane, or lining, of our food
tube, as if it were one continuous sheet, like a piece of calico or
silk; but we must never forget that it is made up of living ranks of
millions of tiny cells standing shoulder to shoulder.
These cells are always actively at work picking out the substances they
need, and manufacturing out of them the ferments and acids, or alkalies,
needed for acting upon the food in their particular part of the tube,
whether it be the mouth, the stomach, or the small intestine.
The Peptic Juice. The cells of the stomach glands manufacture and pour
out a slightly sour, or acid, juice containing a ferment called
pepsin. The acid, which is known as hydrochloric acid, and the
pepsin together are able to melt down pieces of meat, egg, or curds of
milk, and dissolve them into a clear, jelly-like fluid, or thin soup,
which can readily be absorbed by the cells lining the intestine.[4]
You can see now why you shouldn't take large doses of soda or other
alkalies, just because you feel a little uncomfortable after eating.
They will make your stomach less acid and perhaps relieve the
discomfort, but they stop or slow down digestion. Neither is it well to
swallow large quantities of ice-water, or other very cold drinks, at
meal times, or during the process of digestion. As digestion is largely
getting the food dissolved in water, the drinking of moderate quantities
of water, or other fluids, at meals is not only no hindrance, but rather
a help in the process. The danger comes only when the drink is taken so
cold as to check digestion, or when it is used to wash down the food in
chunks, before it has been properly ground by the teeth.
Digestion in the Stomach. Although usually a single, pear-shaped
pouch, the stomach, during digestion, is practically divided into two
parts by the shortening, or closing down, of a ring of circular muscle
fibres about four inches from the lower end, throwing it into a large,
rounded pouch on the left, and a small, cone-shaped one on the right.
The gullet, of course, opens into the large left-hand pouch; and here
the food is stored as it is swallowed until it has become sufficiently
melted and acidified (mixed with acid juice) to be ready to pass on into
the smaller pouch. Here more acid juice is poured out into it, and it is
churned by the muscles in the walls of the stomach until it is changed
to a jelly-like substance.
Digestion in the Small Intestine. The food-pulp now passes on into the
small intestine, where it is acted upon by two other digestive
juices--the bile, which comes from the liver, and the pancreatic
juice, which is secreted by the pancreas.
The liver and the pancreas are a pair of large glands which have budded
out, one on each side of the food tube, about six inches below where the
food enters the small intestine from the stomach. The liver[5] weighs
nearly three pounds, and the pancreas about a quarter of a pound.
Of these two glands, the pancreas, though the smaller, is far more
important in digestion. In fact, it is the most powerful digestive gland
in the body. Its juice, the pancreatic juice, can do everything that any
other digestive juice can, and do it better. It contains a ferment for
turning starch into sugar, which is far more powerful than that of the
saliva; also another (trypsin), which will dissolve meat-stuffs nearly
twice as fast as the pepsin of the stomach can; and still another, not
possessed by either mouth or stomach glands, which will melt fat, so
that it can be sucked up by the lining cells of the intestine.
What does this great combination of powers in the pancreas mean? It
means that we have now reached the real centre and chief seat of
digestion, namely, the small intestine, or upper bowel. This is where
the food is really absorbed, taken up into the blood, and distributed to
the body. All changes before this have been merely preparatory; all
after it are simply a picking up of the pieces that remain.
In general appearance, this division of the food tube is very
simple--merely a tube about twenty feet long and an inch in diameter,
thrown into coils, so as to pack into small space, and slung up to the
backbone by broad loops of a delicate tissue (mesentery). It looks not
unlike twenty feet of pink garden hose.
The intestine also is provided with glands that pour out a juice known
as the intestinal juice, which, although not very active in digestion,
helps to melt down still further some of the sugars, and helps to
prevent putrefaction, or decay, of the food from the bacteria[6] which
swarm in this part of the tube.
By the time the food has gone a third of the way down the small
intestine, a good share of the starches in it have been turned into
sugar and absorbed by the blood vessels in its wall; and the meats,
milk, eggs, and similar foods have been digested in the same way.
There still remains the bulk of the fats to be disposed of. These fats
are attacked by the pancreatic juice and the bile, and made ready for
digestion. Like other foods, they are then eaten by the cells of the
intestinal wall; but instead of going directly into the blood vessels,
as the sugars and other food substances do, they are passed on into
another set of little tubes or vessels, called the lymphatics. In
these they are carried through the lymph glands of the abdomen into
the great lymph duct, which finally pours them into one of the great
veins not far from the heart. Tiny, branching lymphatic tubes are found
all over the body, picking up what the cells leave of the fluid which
has seeped out of the arteries for their use and returning it to the
veins through the great lymph duct.
All these different food substances, in the process of digestion, do not
simply soak through the lining cells of the food tube, as through a
blotting paper or straining cloth, but are actually eaten by the cells
and very much changed in the process, and are then passed through the
other side of the cells, either into the blood vessels of the wall of
the intestine or into the lymph vessels, practically ready for use by
the living tissues of the body. It is in the cells then that our food is
turned into blood, and it is there that what we have eaten becomes
really a part of us. It may even be said that we are living upon the
leavings of the little cell citizens that line our food tube; but they
are wonderfully decent, devoted little comrades of the rest of our body
cells, and generous in the amount of food they pass on to the blood
vessels.
As the food-pulp is squeezed on from one coil to another through the
intestine, it naturally has more and more of its nourishing matter
sucked out of it; until, by the time it reaches the last loop of the
twenty feet of the small intestine, it has lost over two-thirds of its
food value.
The Final Stage--the Journey through the Large Intestine. From the
small intestine what remains of the food-pulp is poured into the last
section of the food tube, which enlarges to from two to three inches in
diameter. It is known as the large intestine, or large bowel. This
section is only about five feet long. The first three-fourths of it is
called the colon; the last or lowest quarter, the rectum, the
discharge-pipe of the food tube. The principal use of the colon is to
suck out the remaining traces of nourishing matter from the food and the
water in which it is dissolved, thus gradually drying the food-pulp down
to a solid or pasty form, in which condition it collects in a large S
shaped loop of the bowel just above the rectum, until discharged.
The Waste Materials. By the time that the remains of the food-pulp
have reached the middle of the large intestine, they have lost all their
nutritive value and most of their water. All the way down from the upper
part of the small intestine they have been receiving solid waste
substances poured out by the glands of the intestines; indeed, the bulk
of the feces is made up of these intestinal secretions, not, as is
generally supposed, of the undigested remains of the food. Ninety-five
per cent of our food is absorbed; the body-engine burns up its fuel very
clean. The next largest part of the feces is bacteria, or germs; and the
third and smallest, the indigestible fragments and remainders of food,
such as vegetable fibres, bran, fruit skins, pits, seeds, etc. Hence the
feces are not only worthless from a food point of view, but full of all
sorts of possibilities for harm; and the principal interest of the body
lies in getting rid of them as promptly and regularly as possible.
It can easily be seen how important it is that a habit should be formed,
which nothing should be allowed to break, of promptly and regularly
getting rid of these waste materials. For most persons, once in
twenty-four hours is normal; for some, twice or even three times in the
day. Whatever interval is natural, it should be attended to, beginning
at a fixed hour every morning.
Constipation, and how to Prevent It. Constipation should not be
treated by the all too common method of swallowing salts, which will
cause a flood of watery matters to be poured through the food tube and
sluice it clean of both poisons and melting food at the same time,
leaving it in an exhausted and disturbed condition afterwards; nor by
taking some irritating vegetable cathartic, generally in the form of
pills, which sets up a violent action of the muscles of the food tube,
driving its contents through at headlong speed; nor by washing out the
lower two or three feet of the bowel with injections of water; although
any or all of these may be resorted to occasionally for temporary
relief. A very large portion of the food eaten is sucked out of the food
tube into the blood vessels, passes through a large area of the body,
and is poured out again as waste through the glands of the lining of the
lower third of the bowel. Constipation, therefore, is caused by
disturbances which interfere with these processes all over the body,
not only in the stomach and bowels. Its only real and permanent cure is
through exercise in the open air, sleep, and proper ventilation of
bedrooms, with abundance of nourishing food, including plenty of green
vegetables and fresh fruits.
The Appendix and Appendicitis. The beginning of the large bowel, where
the small bowel empties into it, is the largest part of it, and forms a
curious pouch called the cecum, or blind pouch. From one side of
this projects a little wormlike tube, twisted and coiled upon itself,
from three to six inches long and of about the size of a slate pencil.
This is the famous appendix vermiformis (meaning, wormlike tag),
which is such a frequent source of trouble. It is the shrunken and
shriveled remains of a large pouch of the intestine which once opened
into the cecum, and was used originally as a sort of second stomach for
delaying and digesting the remains of the food. The reason why it gives
rise to so much trouble is that it is so small--scarcely larger than
will admit a knitting-needle--and so twisted upon itself that germs or
other poisonous substances swallowed with the food may get into it,
start a swelling or inflammation, get trapped in there by the closing of
the narrow mouth of the tube, and form an abscess, which leaks through,
or bursts into, the cavity of the body, called the peritoneum. This
causes a very serious and often fatal blood poisoning.
Fortunately, appendicitis, or inflammation of the appendix, is not a
very common disease, causing only one in one hundred of all deaths that
occur; and these are mostly cases that were not treated promptly. Yet,
if you have a severe, constant pain, rather low down in the right-hand
corner of your abdomen, and if, when you press your hand firmly down in
that corner, it hurts, or you feel a lump, it is decidedly safest to
call a doctor and let him see what the condition really is, and advise
you what to do.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The term salts includes, as will be explained later, a large
number of substances, like ordinary table salt, baking soda, and the
laxative salts.
[2] There are three pairs of these: one just below the ears and behind
the angles of the jaw, known as the parotid; one under the middle of
the lower jaw known as the submaxillary; and a small pair just under
the tip of the tongue, called the sublingual. These glands have grown
up from the very simplest of beginnings. At first there was just a
little pocketing or pouching down of the mucous lining, like the finger
of a glove; then a couple of smaller hollow fingers budded off from the
bottom of the first finger; then four smaller fingers from the bottom of
these; and so on, until a regular little hollow tree or shrub of these
tiny tubes was built up, all discharging through the original hollow
stem, which has now become what we call the duct of the gland. Every
secreting gland in the body--the stomach (or peptic) glands, the
salivary glands, the liver, the pancreas--is built up upon this simple
plan. The saliva and the juice of the pancreas and that of the liver
(bile) are alkaline, as are also the blood and most juices of the body.
The stomach juice is acid, as also are the urine and the perspiration.
[3] It is wonderfully elastic and constantly changing in size,
contracting till it will scarcely hold a quart when empty, and
expanding, as food or drink is put into it, until it will easily hold
two quarts, or even a gallon or more when greatly distended, as by gas.
[4] If you take some pepsin which has been extracted from the stomach of
a pig or a calf, melt it in water in a glass tube, then drop one or two
little pieces of meat or hard-boiled white of egg into it, you can see
them slowly melt away like sugar in a cup of coffee. If you add a few
drops of hydrochloric acid, the melting will go on much faster; and if
you warm up the tube to about the heat of the body, it will proceed
faster still. So nature knew just what she was doing when she provided
pepsin and acid and warmth in the stomach.
[5] The liver and the bile are more fully described in chapter XVII.
[6] Tiny plant cells, known also as germs, which cause fermentation,
decay, and many diseases.
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are caused by the character of the epidemy, but, perhaps, more frequently by the weak and sickly constitution of the patient and the external circumstances affecting it. Thus, persons of scrofulous habit, being naturally of a low organization, witho... The Muscles
Importance of the Muscles. It wouldn't be of much use to smell food, if we couldn't pick it up and bite it after we had reached it; or to see danger, if we were not able to move away from it. Every animal that lives, moves; and every movement, whe... The Nails
How the Nails are Made. Another trade, which our wonderful skin has literally at its fingers' ends, is that of making nails. Indeed, every kind of scale, armor, fur, feather, and leather coating possessed by bird, beast, or fish was made by, and out... The Need Of Pure Air
Free Air is Pure. As air, in the form of wind, actually sweeps all outdoors, day and night, it clearly is likely to pick up a good many different kinds of dust and dirt, which may not be wholesome when breathed into our lungs. Fortunately, nature's ... The Nerves In The Skin
How We Tell Things from Touch, and Feel Heat and Cold and Pain. Last of all, the skin is the principal organ of the sense of touch, and also of the temperature sense--the sense of heat and cold--and of the sense that feels pain. All these feelings a... The Nose
How the Nose is Made. The nose began as a pair of little puckers, or dimples, just above the mouth, containing cells that were particularly good smellers, in order to test the food before it was eaten. All smells rise, so these cells were right on t... The Organic Versus Chemical Feud
Now, regrettably, and at great personal risk to my reputation, I must try to puncture the very favorite belief of food religionists, the doctrine that organically grown food is as nutritious as food can possibly be, Like Woody Allen's brown-rice-eat... The Period Of Convalescence
under the usual drug-treatment, is, however, usually protracted to twice or thrice the duration of the disease, the patient being compelled to keep the house for five or six weeks, especially from fear of _anasarca_, or dropsy of the skin, frequentl... The Plumbing And Sewering Of The Body
The Wastes of the Body. Almost everything that the body does in the process of living means the breaking down, or burning, of food; and produces, like every other kind of burning, two kinds of waste--smoke and ashes. The carbon dioxid smoke, as w... The Poor Start
For this reason it makes sense to take vitamins and food supplements, to be discussed in the next chapter. And because our food supply, Organic or "conventional," is far from optimum, if a person wants to be and remain healthy and have a life span t... The Power Of Words
In every word there is a magic influence, and each word is in itself the breath of the internal and moving spirit. JOSEPH ENNEMOSER: The History of Magic. There is magic in words, surely, and many a treasur... The Prime Rules Of Fasting
Another truism of natural hygiene is that we dig our own graves with our teeth. It is sad but true that almost all eat too much quantity of too little quality. Dietary excesses are the main cause of death in North America. Fasting balances these exc... The Prognosis
under a well conducted course of hydriatic treatment is, in general, favorable. Much depends, however, on the season of the year (in damp and cold weather--partly owing to a lack of pure air in the sick-room--the disease is more dangerous than in su... The Progress Of Disease: Irritation, Enervation, Toxemia
Disease routinely lies at the end of a three-part chain that goes: irritation or sub-clinical malnutrition, enervation, toxemia. Irritations are something the person does to themselves or something that happens around them. Stresses, in other words.... The Rational Care Of Self
A WOMAN who had had some weeks of especially difficult work for mind and body, and who had finished it feeling fresh and well, when a friend expressed surprise at her freedom from fatigue, said, with a smiling face: "Oh! but I took great car... The Real Truth About Salt And Sugar
First, let me remind certain food religionists: salt is salt is salt is salt and sugar is sugar is sugar. There are no good forms of salt and no good forms of sugar. Salt from a mine and salt from the sea both have the same harmful effect; white sug... The Relation Of The Internal Parts To The External Surface Of The Body
An exact acquaintance with the normal character of the external form, its natural prominences and depressions, produced by the projecting swell of muscles and points of bone, &c., is of great practical importance to the surgeon. These several marks ... The Relation Of The Principal Bloodvessels Of The Thorax And Abdomen To The Osseous Skeleton Etc
The arterial system of vessels assumes, in all cases, somewhat of the character of the forms upon which they are distributed, or of the organs which they supply. This mode of distribution becomes the more apparent, according as we rise from particul... The Relations Of The Principal Bloodvessels To The Viscera Of The Thoracico-abdominal Cavity
The median line of the body is occupied by the centres of the four great systems of organs which serve in the processes of circulation, respiration, innervation, and nutrition. These organs being fashioned in accordance with the law of symmetry, we ... The Relative Anatomy Of The Male Pelvic Organs
As the abdomen and pelvis form one general cavity, the organs contained in both regions are thereby intimately related. The viscera of the abdomen completely fill this region, and transmit to the pelvic organs all the impressions made upon them by t... The Relative Position Of The Cranial Nasal Oral And Pharyngeal Cavities
On making a section (vertically through the median line) of the cranio-facial and cervico-hyoid apparatus, the relation which these structures bear to each other in the osseous skeleton reminds me strongly of the great fact enunciated by the philoso... The Relative Position Of The Deeper Organs Of The Thorax And Those Of The Abdomen
The size or capacity of the thorax in relation to that of the abdomen varies in the individual at different periods of life. At an early age, the thorax, compared to the abdomen, is less in proportion than it is at adult age. The digestive organs in... The Relative Position Of The Superficial Organs Of The Thorax And Abdomen
In the osseous skeleton, the thorax and abdomen constitute a common compartment. We cannot, while we contemplate this skeleton, isolate the one region from the other by fact or fancy. The only difference which I can discover between the regions call... The Religion Of It
THE religion of it is the whole of it. "All religion has relation to life and the life of religion is to do good." If religion does not teach us to do good in the very best way, in the way that is most truly useful to ourselves and to other ... The Repugnant Bowel
I don't know why, but people of our culture have a deep-seated reluctance to relate to the colon or it's functions. People don't want to think about the colon or personally get involved with it by giving themselves enemas or colonics. They become de... The Resort Treatment Of Chronic Heart Disease
In line with the continued growing popularity of special resorts and special cures for different types of disease, resort or sanatorium treatment for chronic heart disease has grown to considerable popularity during the last twenty years or more. Th... The Roentgenographic Signs Of Expiratory-valve-like Bronchial Obstruction
The roentgenray signs in expiratory valve-like obstruction of a bronchus are those of an acute obstructive emphysema (Fig. 74), namely, 1. Greater transparency on the obstructed side (Iglauer). 2. Displacement of the heart to the free side (Igl... The Royal Touch
Malcolm. Well; more anon.--Comes the king forth, I pray you? Doctor. Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces The great assay of art; but at his touch-- Such sanctity hath hea... The Sitz-bath May Be Taken In A Small Wash-tub If There Is No
proper sitz-bath-tub at hand. It should be large enough to allow the water to come up to the navel of the patient, and to permit rubbing. Too large a tub would not allow the patient to sit in it comfortably. If there is no tub to fit, a common bathing... The Speech Organs
The Voice, a Waste Product. It is one of the most curious things in this body of ours that what we regard as its most wonderful power and gift, the voice, is, in one sense, a waste product. So ingenious is nature that she has actually made that marv... The Stages Of Fasting
The best way to understand what happens when we fast is to break up the process into six stages: preparation for the fast, loss of hunger, acidosis, normalization, healing, and breaking the fast. A person that has consumed the typical American die... The Stiffening Rods Of The Body-machine
What Bones Are. The bones are not the solid foundation and framework upon which the body is built, as they are usually described. They are simply a framework of rods and plates which petrified, or turned into spongy limestone after the body was buil...