Page:The Road to Wellville (1926).djvu/24

 proportions of the others. They supplement each other’s efforts like partners in a well organized business enterprise, each with its particular function and responsibility.

Calcium regulates the heart’s action and tends to keep the balance among other minerals. It helps the blood to maintain its neutrality and gives it its power to coagulate. Phosphorus is essential to nerve action. It is involved in all cell multiplication. It is important in maintaining the right liquid content of the tissues as well as in absorption and secretion.

Without iron the energy would flag and body warmth decrease, because the oxygen needed for energy-yielding processes could not be carried through the body by the blood stream.

Iodine is so necessary to the thyroid gland that goiter occurs frequently in those sections where there is a lack of iodine in the food or water supply. Iodine is present in most sea foods and is found in the vegetation and water along the seaboard of the country. In certain sections known as “goiter belts,” iodine must be supplied medicinally. It is now available in an iodinized table salt.

Water helps to regulate the concentration of the minerals in the body and carries food to the tissues by holding the food materials in solution in the body fluids. It also is invaluable in helping to carry off the body’s wastes and assists in regulating the body temperature. Four to eight glasses of pure water every day make for health. Most of it should be taken between meals.