Science against facts.
According to the
Scientific American, Dr. J. G. Bunting has published some very interesting and useful facts in relation to the digestion of food in the human stomach, deduced from his experiments with
St. Martin, the man with an enlarged bullet hole in his side, through which can be seen all the processes of digestion.
In speaking of the nutritious property of farinaceous food, and the proper state in which it is most easily digested, he gives the following most excellent advice:
‘
"Hot bread never digests Bear this in mind, reader, if you are accustomed to eat the light and tempting biscuit at tea, or the warm loaf that looks so appetizing upon the breakfast table.
After a long season of tumbling and working about the stomach it will begin to ferment, and will eventually be passed out of the stomach as an unwelcome tenant of that delicate organ, but never digests — never becomes assimilated to, absorbed by, the organs that appropriate nutrition to the body.
It is a first-rate dyspepsia producer.
The above is true, as has been repeatedly proved from actual observation through the free side of
Alexis St. Martin."
’
This is one of those numerous demonstrations of Science which induce people to exclaim, as
Mr. Bumble does of the, Law, "Science is an ass." We have great respect for the worthy gentleman,
Alexis St. Martin, who permits himself to be experimented upon in this way for the public good, and who keeps the " enlarged bullet hole in his side" as a window through which the medical faculty can inspect the state of his digestion.
But the result is not satisfactory.
The experiment has been tried on a wider scale than the case of a single individual, and by people whose stomachs, not being decayed and exposed by "enlarged bullet holes," are in a better condition to decide what kind of food is most nutritious to the system in a sound condition.
In the
Northern States, where cold bread is alone universally eaten, there is a hundred times more dyspepsia than in the
South, where warm bread is the unvarying accompaniment of every meal.
Every man can very easily find out for himself what kind of food agrees or disagrees with him, and would much better consult the state of his own system than any "Scientific agencies, " on "the free side of
Alexis St. Martin,"
