Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 99
The selection of food for the relief of these intestinal
conditions constitutes our most satisfactory means of treatment.
Because of the fact that it is a final process with
no auxiliary successor, the course ordinarily pursued varies
from that pursued with the refractor^^ stomach. In the
case of the stomach we are inclined to put upon it legitimate
burdens, freeing it from the embarrassment of incidental
vices, and depending upon the intestine to make good an}'-
shortcomings.
In the case of the intestine we are inclined
to spare all burden possible, forcing the stomach to its
highest pitch with a view to relieving the intestine of worry.
All food fermentation tends to produce disease of the surfaces
which include it. Hence, for a further reason we
seek to avoid undigested residue, which introduces the
second class of dietetic problems occurring in the course of
what I have termed, quite arbitrarily, secondary digestion.
Previously it was stated that proteid food which has
been fully digested in the stomach or intestines in the
so-called peptone stage, is unfit to enter the blood for general
distribution. It must be transformed to a condition chemically
much nearer to the form from which it started. In a
measure the same is true of starches and fats. This remarkable
and really protective function resides in two organs,
to what extent parallel in powers is uncertain.
These
are the liver, which all food traverses before entering the
general circulation, and, more especially, the intestinal wall,
which all food stuff must penetrate before it can be regarded
as within the body.
In the course of this simple penetration
it is now conclusive that the most important changes
occur of the nature just referred to.
Physiological chemistry
fails us at this interesting point so that we have not
knowledge of the chemical changes which normally take
place, but clinically we know that upon the integrity of the
mucous membrane of the intestine depends in great part
the chance of secondary^ digestion. Hence the gravity of intestinal
fermentation.
Hence the significance of hereditary