Ill Effects of Food. Parasites and Micro-organisms. Poisoning by Food. Idiosyncrasies.

For many reasons food is not always wholesome and may be a cause of disease. Its ill effects have been so frequently referred to in the preceding pages that here it is necessary only to recapitulate briefly what has been said. The ill effects of insufficient nourishment have already been described.

Ill Effects Of Food

Food of itself may do harm, or it may be a carrier of pathogenic matter. Eating too much may be a temporary occurrence or may be habitual. Occasional great indulgence in overeating or overdrinking is much less harmful than habitual indiscretion of a less degree. Temporary excess produces acute gastric and intestinal disorders. Chronic excess produces ill effects locally in the digestive organs, and often generally by modifying metabolism and by producing irritants to the organs of elimination. Indigestion, chronic gastritis, enteritis, gastric dilatation, and hepatic congestion are the commonest local effects of habitual overeating. Disturbed metabolism is shown by the development of such maladies as obesity, lithemia, gout, and oxaluria. The harm done to organs of elimination is demonstrated by the frequent occurrence of chronic nephritis. Not only an excess of food, but also food that supplies the body with its proximate principles out of balance, causes these maladies. For instance, eating too much meat, with rich gravies and sauces, drinking too little water, and taking too little exercise, will produce dyspepsia and ultimately will fill the blood with proteins that require a proportionately large quantity of oxygen for their complete assimilation. This is not furnished because insufficient exercise is taken. The products of imperfeet digestion and metabolism produce various nervous and nutritive changes. Moreover, they especially tax the organs of elimination, often to the point of injury, as they are in a sense foreign to the human system, and the organs are not perfectly adapted for their excretion.

Too little meat may be a cause of anemia. Too much salt meat and not enough fresh vegetables and fruits may cause scurvy. Improper feeding of infants leads to rachitis. Eating too much, especially too much of fats and sweets, may cause acne. Constipation is often caused by the habitual use of foods that are too concentrated, and do not contain sufficient of nature's laxative, found in water, fruit, and vegetables.

It is true that by far the largest number of cases of illness and of fatal disease is due to infections, but, as Sir Henry Thompson writes: "More than one-half of the disease which embitters the middle and latter part of life among the middle and upper classes of the population is due to avoidable errors in diet." Important among these is indiscretion in drinking. The ill effects of too little water have been described on page 11, and of too much tea, coffee, and alcohol on pages 131, 133 and 142. It is not necessary to repeat what has been said.