Page:The Road to Wellville (1926).djvu/25

 Bulk in food is necessary to the successful action of the intestine and is an aid to digestion also. Bulk (indigestible roughage) is necessary to carry needed moisture through the intestinal tract, as well as to give bulk to the food residues, so that the intestinal muscles will get the stimulation necessary to move the food along.

Primitive man developed an intestine large enough to accommodate a coarse diet of unground grain, half-cooked meat, and raw vegetables. We retain this inheritance in the midst of a sedentary civilization. Thus the addition to the diet of a regular amount of roughage, in appetizing form that does not tire the taste and so may be taken regularly enough to do good, is of prime importance to those of us who would keep our eyes fixed on Wellville’s spires.

These are the all-important vitamins. We do not know what vitamins are. We only know them by their works. They are absolutely necessary to health and growth and are present in various foods in minutest quantities.

Experimentation has shown striking disaster resulting from diets entirely lacking in vitamins. But diets only slightly lacking in any one of the vitamins are even more dangerous. First, because such deficient diets are a great deal more prevalent. And second, because they produce just as serious consequences but in a more obscure and subtle way.

One who habitually gets an under-supply of vitamins in his food will suffer from general debility, will be easy prey to infections, and will fall heir to the common