Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/35

Rh prepared, well chewed food, properly insalivated, the machine is able to turn out a fine job. But if, as so often happens, the food is of a quality not fit for the human stomach—or if it has been but half chewed, or bolted—or if the stomach has been "stuffed" by a gluttonous owner—there is going to be trouble. In such a case, instead of the normal process of digestion being performed, the stomach is unable to do its work and fermentation results, and the stomach becomes the holder of a fermenting, putrefying, rotting mass—a "yeast pot" it has been called under such circumstances. If people could but form an idea of what a cesspool they maintain in their stomachs they would cease to shrug their shoulders and look bored whenever the subject of rational and sane habits of eating are mentioned.

This putrefying ferment, arising from abnormal habits of eating, often becomes chronic and results in a condition which manifests itself in the symptoms of what is called "dyspepsia," or similar troubles. It remains in the stomach for a long time after the meal, and then when the next meal reaches the stomach the fermentation continues until the stomach actually becomes a perpetually active "yeast pot." This condition, of course, results in an impairment of the normal functioning of the stomach, the surface of which becomes slimy, soft, thin and weak. The glands become clogged and the whole digestive apparatus of the stomach becomes impaired and broken down. In such event the half digested food passes out into the small intestine, tainted with the acids arising from fermentation,