Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia Part 7

The object of these exercises is to get your wandering mind daily a little more under control; do not exhaust yourself.

After some months of treatment, ask yourself--

Am I able to walk ten miles with ease? when introduced to a stranger of either s.e.x or any age, to converse agreeably, profitably and without embarra.s.sment? to entertain visitors so that all enjoy themselves? to read essays or poetry with as much pleasure as a novel? to listen to a lecture, and be able afterwards to rehea.r.s.e the main points? to be good company for myself on a rainy day? to submit to insult, injustice or petulance with dignity and patience, and to answer them wisely and calmly? When you are able to answer, "Yes!" to these queries, your nerves are sound.

CHAPTER X

FIRST STEPS TOWARDS HEALTH

"All sick people want to get well, but rarely in the best way. A 'jolly good fellow' said: 'Strike at the root of the disease, Doctor!' And smash went the whisky bottle under the faithful physician's cane."

In neuropaths, all irritation to the nervous system is dangerous, and must be eliminated, and to this end, eyes, ears, nose and teeth, all in close touch with nerves and brain, must be put and kept in perfect order.

The Eye. Only 4 per cent, of people have _perfect_ sight. Errors in refraction--common in neuropaths--mean that the unstable brain-cells are constantly irritated. Dodd corrected eye-errors in 52 epileptics, 36 of whom showed improvement.

You take your watch to a watchmaker, not a chemist; take your eyes to an oculist, and if you cannot afford to see one privately, get an eye-hospital note. (To allow a chemist or "optician" to try lenses until he finds a pair through which you "see better" is very dangerous.)

Then you go to a qualified optician, who makes a proper frame, and inserts the lenses prescribed. Patients should inquire if the gla.s.ses are to be worn continually, or only when doing close work or reading.

The Ears. Giddiness and other unpleasant symptoms may be due to ear trouble. If there is any discharge, buzzing or ringing, see a doctor, for if ear disease gains a firm hold it is usually incurable.

The Nose. Neuropaths often suffer from moist nasal catarrh, or from a dry type in which crusts of offensive mucus form, the disagreeable odour of which is not apparent to the patient himself. He must pay careful attention to the general health, take nouris.h.i.+ng food, and wash out the nose three times a day with:

1 oz. Bicarbonate of Soda, 1 oz. Common Salt, 1 oz. Borax, Dissolved in 1 pint hot water.

For obstinate nasal trouble, consult an aural surgeon.

The Teeth.

"Most men dig their graves with their teeth."--Chinese Proverb.

Serious ills are caused by defective teeth, for microbes decompose the food left in the crevices to acid substances which dissolve the lime salts from the teeth, and this process continues until the tooth is lost.

Faulty teeth are common in neuropaths, and at the risk of being wearisome--and good advice is wearisome to people--patients must get proper aid, privately or at a dental hospital, from a _registered dentist_, who, like a doctor, does not advertise.

Teeth gone beyond recall will be painlessly extracted, those going, "stopped", and tartar or scale sc.r.a.ped off. If necessary, have artificial teeth, but remember that the comfort of a plate depends upon skilled workmans.h.i.+p, not on gold or platinum. Everyone should visit the dentist as a matter of routine once a year.

Buy 3 ozs. Precipitated Chalk, 1 oz. Chlorate of Potash,

and brush the teeth with this mixture ere going to bed; use tepid water after meals. Do not brush across, but, holding the brush horizontally, brush with a circular motion, cleaning top and bottom teeth at once. Use a moderately hard brush with a curved surface which fits the teeth.

After each meal, it is essential to cleanse the interstices between the teeth with a quill toothpick or dental floss, never with a pin, for it is the decomposition of tiny particles that starts decay; _a tooth never decays from within_.

1 fl. oz. Glycerine, 1 fl. oz. Carbolic Acid, fl. oz. Methylated Chloroform.

With ten drops of this mixture in a winegla.s.sful of tepid water, wash out your mouth and gargle your throat after every meal, sending vigorous waves between the teeth, and so removing any particles left by toothpick and brush.

Children should be taught these habits as soon as they can eat, for the custom of a lifetime is easy.

CHAPTER XI

DIGESTION

"We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends, we may live without books, But civilized man cannot live without cooks."

The human digestive system consists of a long tube, in which food is received, nutriment taken from it as it pa.s.ses slowly downwards, and from which waste is discharged, in from sixteen to thirty hours afterwards.

Six glands pour saliva into the mouth, where it should be--but how rarely is--mixed with the food, causing chemical changes, and moistening the bolus to pa.s.s easily down.

The acid Gastric Juice, of which a quart is secreted daily, stops the action of the saliva, and commences to digest the proteins, which pa.s.s through several stages, each a little more a.s.similable than the last.

The lower end of the stomach contracts regularly and violently, churning the food with the juice, and gradually squirting it, when liquified to Chyme, into the small intestine. If food is not chewed until almost liquified, the gastric juice cannot act normally, but has to attack as much of the surface of the food-lump as possible, leaving the interior to decompose, causing dyspepsia and flatulence.

Most people suppose the stomach finishes digestion, but it only initiates the digestion of those foodstuffs which contain nitrogen, leaving fats, starches and sugars untouched.

By an obscure process, the acid chyme stimulates the walls of the bowel to send a chemical messenger, a Hormone through the blood to the liver and pancreas, warning them their help is needed, whereupon they actively secrete their ferments.

The secretion of the pancreas is very complex. It carries on the work of the saliva, and also splits insoluble fats into a soluble milky emulsion.

Fats are unaffected in the mouth and stomach, which explains why hot, b.u.t.tered toast, and other hot, greasy dishes are so indigestible. The b.u.t.ter on plain bread is quickly cleared off, and the bread attacked by the gastric juice, but in toast or fatty dishes, the fat is intimately mixed with other ingredients, none of which can properly be dealt with. Always b.u.t.ter toast when cold.

To continue: The secretion of the pancreas also contains a very active ferment, which, on entering the bowel, meets and mixes with another ferment four times as powerful as gastric juice, which completes the digestion of the proteids.

Meantime, the secretions of Lieberkuhn's glands (of which there are immense numbers in the small intestine) are further aiding the digestion of the chyme, while the liver (the largest and most important gland in the body) sends its ferments, and the gall-bladder its bile, which further emulsifies the fatty acids and glycerin until they are ready to be absorbed.

The chemically-changed chyme is now termed Chyle, and is ready to be absorbed by the minute, projecting Villi.

The fatty portion of the chyle is absorbed by minute capillaries and ultimately mingles with the blood, which may look quite milky after a fatty meal.

The remaining food is absorbed by the blood capillaries in the villi, and pa.s.ses to the liver for filtration and storage.

The large bowel has Lieberkuhn's glands, but not villi, and is relatively unimportant, though most of the water the body needs is absorbed from here.

How food becomes energy and tissue we do not know. The tissues are continually being built up from a.s.similated food, and as constantly being burnt away, oxygen for this purpose being extracted from the air we inhale, and carried via the blood to every corner of the body. The ashes of this burning are expelled into the blood and lymph, and carried out of the body by the kidneys, lungs, skin and bowels. The product of the burning is the marvel--Life; the extinction of the fire is the terror--Death.

Energy is obtained almost solely from the combustion of fats and sugars, proteids being reconverted into alb.u.min, and then broken down to obtain their carbon for combustion, the nitrogen being expelled, but proteids are essential for the building of the tissues themselves, the stones of the furnaces which burn up carbohydrates and fats.

The time taken in the digestion of foods was first studied through a wound in the stomach of St. Martin, a Canadian. Experiments were made with various well-masticated foods, and with similar foods placed unchewed, into the stomach through the wound, the latter experiment being carried out by millions of people at every meal, by a slightly different route.

Boiled food is more easily digested than fried or roasted (the frying pan should be anathema to a neuropath); lean meat than fat; fresh than salt; hot meat than cold; full-grown than young animals, though the latter are more tender; white flesh than red; while lean meat is made less, and fat meat more digestible, by salting or broiling. Oily dishes, hashes, stews, pastries and sweetmeats are hard to digest. Bread should be stale, and toasted crisply _right through_. The time, compared with the thoroughness of digestion, is of little importance, as it varies widely within physiologic bounds.

Most people fancy that the more they eat the stronger they become, whereas the digestion of all food beyond that actually needed to repair the waste due to physical and mental effort consumes priceless nerve energy, and weakens one. The greater part of excessive food has literally to be _burnt away_ by the body, which causes great strain, mainly on the muscles. The question is not: "How much can I eat?" but: "How much do I need?"