Hatha Yoga of the
Body
Chapter 5 The Laboratory Of The Body
This
little book is not intended as a text-book upon
physiology, but inasmuch as the majority of people
seem to have little or no idea of the nature,
functions and uses of the various bodily organs,
we think it as well to say a few words regarding
the very important organs of the body which have
to do with the digestion and assimilation of the
food which nourishes the body—which perform the
laboratory work of the system.
The
first bit of the human machinery of digestion to
be considered by us are the teeth. Nature has
provided us with teeth to bite our food and grind
it into fine bits, thus rendering it of a
convenient size and consistency to be easily acted
upon by the saliva and the digestive juices of the
stomach, after which it is reduced to a liquid
form that its nourishing qualities may be easily
assimilated and absorbed by the body. This seems
to be merely a repetition of an oft-told tale, but
how many of our readers really act as if they knew
for what purpose their teeth had been given them?
They bolt their food just as if teeth were merely
for show and generally act as if Nature had
provided them with a gizzard, by the aid of which
they could like the fowl grind up and break into
small bits the food that they had bolted. Remember
friends that your teeth were given you for a
purpose, and also consider the fact that if Nature
had intended you to bolt your food she would have
provided you with a gizzard instead of with teeth.
We will have much to say about the proper use of
the teeth, as we go along, as it has a very close
connection with a vital principle of Hatha Yoga,
as you will see after a while.
The
next organs to be considered are the Salivary
Glands. These glands are six in number, of which
four are located under the tongue and jaw, and two
in the cheeks in the front of the ears, one on
each side. Their best known function is to
manufacture, generate or secrete saliva, which,
when needed, flows out through numerous ducts in
different parts of the mouth, and mixes with the
food which is being chewed or masticated. The food
being chewed into small particles, the saliva is
able to more thoroughly reach all portions of it
with a correspondingly increased effect. The
saliva moistens the food, thus allowing it to he
more easily swallowed, this function, however,
being a mere incident to its more important ones.
Its best known function (and the one which Western
science teaches is its most important one) is its
chemical offices, which convert the starchy food
matter into sugar, thus performing the first step
in the process of digestion.
Here
is another oft-told tale. You all know about the
saliva, but how many of you eat in a manner which
allows Nature to put the saliva to work as she had
designed? You bolt your food after a few
perfunctory chews and defeat Nature's plans,
toward which she has gone to so much trouble, and
to perform which she has built such beautiful and
delicate machinery. But Nature manages to "get
back" at you for your contempt and disregard of
her plans-Nature has a good memory and always make
you pay your debts.
We
must not forget to mention the tongue-that
faithful friend who is so often made to perform
the ignoble task of assisting in the utterance of
angry words, retailing of gossip, lying, nagging,
swearing, and last but not least, complaining.
The
tongue has a most important work to perform in the
process of nourishing the body with food. Besides
a number of mechanical movements which it performs
in eating, in which it helps to move the food
along and its similar service in the act of
swallowing, it is the organ of taste and passes
critical judgement upon the food which asks
admittance to the stomach.
You
have neglected the normal uses of the teeth, the
salivary glands and the tongue, and they have
consequently failed to give you the best service.
If you but trust them and return to sane and
normal methods of eating you will find them gladly
and cheerfully responding to your trust and will
once more give you their full share of service.
They are good friends and servants, but need a
little confidence, trust and responsibility to
bring out their best points.
After
the food has been chewed or masticated and then
saturated with saliva it passes down the throat
into the stomach. The lower part of the throat,
which is called the gullet, performs a peculiar
muscular contraction, which pushes downward the
particles of food, which act forms a part of the
process of "swallowing." The process of converting
the starchy portion of the food into sugar, or
glucose, which is begun by the saliva in the
mouth, is continued as the food passes into and
down the gullet, but nearly, or entirely ceases,
when the food once reaches the stomach, which fact
must be considered when one studies the subject of
the advantage of a deliberate habit of eating, as,
if the food is hastily chewed and swallowed, it
reaches the stomach only partially affected by the
saliva and in an imperfect condition for Nature's
subsequent work.
The
stomach itself is a pear-shaped bag with a
capacity of about one quart or more in some cases.
The food enters the stomach from the gullet on the
upper left-hand side, just below the heart. The
food afterwards leaves the stomach on the lower
right-hand and enters the small intestine by means
of a peculiar sort of valve, which is so
wonderfully constructed that it allows the matter
from the stomach to pass easily through it, but
refuses to allow anything to work back from the
intestine into the stomach. This valve is known as
the "Pyloric Valve" or the "Pyloric Orifice," the
word "Pyloric" being derived from the Greek word
which means "gatekeeper"-and indeed this little
valve acts as a most intelligent gatekeeper,
always on the watch, never asleep.
The
stomach is a great chemical laboratory in which
the food undergoes chemical changes which allow it
to he taken up by the system and changed into a
nourishing material which is converted into rich,
red blood which courses all over the body,
building up, repairing, strengthening and adding
to all the parts and organs.
The
"inside" of the stomach is covered with a lining
of delicate mucous membrane, which is filled with
minute glands, all of which open into the stomach
and around which is a very fine network of minute
blood-vessels with remarkably thin walls, from
which is manufactured, or secreted, that wonderful
fluid, the gastric juice. The gastric juice is a
powerful liquid acting as a solvent upon what is
called the nitrogenous portions of the food. It
also acts upon the sugar or glucose which has been
manufactured from the starchy food by the saliva,
as above described. It is a bitter sort of liquid,
containing a chemical product called pepsin, which
is its active agent and which plays a most
important part in the digestion of the food.
In
a normal, healthy person the stomach manufactures
or secretes about one gallon of gastric juice in
twenty-four hours, and uses same in the process of
digestion of the food. When the food reaches the
stomach the little glands, before mentioned, pour
out a sufficient supply of the gastric juice,
which mixes up with the mass of food in the
stomach. Then the stomach sets up sort of a
churning motion, which moves the pulpy food round
and round, from end to end, from side to side,
twisting and turning it, churning and kneading it,
until the gastric juice penetrates every part of
the mass and is well mixed up into it. The
Instinctive Mind does some wonderful work in the
stomach movements and works like a well oiled
machine.
And
if the stomach has been treated to properly
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, and the result is that the
whole system becomes gradually poisoned and
imperfectly nourished.
The
food-mass, saturated with the gastric juice which
has been poured upon it and kneaded and churned
into it, leaves the stomach by the Pyloric orifice
on the lower right-hand side of the stomach and
enters the small intestine.
The
small intestine is a tube-like canal ingeniously
coiled upon itself so as to occupy but a
comparatively small space, but which is really
from twenty to thirty feet in length. Its inner
walls are lined with a velvety substance, and
through the greater part of its length this
velvety lining is arranged in transverse
shelf-like folds, which maintain a sort of
"winking" motion, swaying backward and forward in
the intestinal fluids, retarding the passage of
the food and providing an increased surface for
secretion and absorption. The velvety condition of
this mucous lining is caused by numerous minute
elevations, something like the surface of a piece
of plush, which are known as the intestinal
"villi," the purpose of which will be explained a
little further on.
As
soon as the food-mass enters the small intestine
it is met with a peculiar fluid called the bile,
which saturates it and is thoroughly mixed up with
it. The bile is a secretion of the liver and is
stored up ready for use in a strong bag, known as
the gall bladder. About two quarts of bile per day
is used in saturating the food as it passes into
the small intestine. Its purpose is to assist the
pancreatic juice in preparing the fatty parts of
the food for absorption and also to aid in the
prevention of decomposition and putrefaction of
the food as it passes through the small intestine
and the neutralization of the gastric juice which
has already performed its work. The pancreatic
juice is secreted by the pancreas, an elongated
organ situated just behind the stomach, and its
purpose is to act upon the fatty portions of the
food and to render them possible of absorption
from the intestines along with the other parts of
the food nourishment. About one and one-half pints
is used daily in this work.
The
hundreds of thousands of plush-like "hairs" upon
the velvety lining of the small intestine (above
alluded to), and which are known as "villi,"
maintain a constant waving motion, passing through
and in the soft, semi-liquid food which is passing
through the small intestine. They are constantly
in motion, licking up and absorbing the
nourishment that is contained in the food-mass and
transmitting it to the system.
The
several steps whereby the food is converted into
blood and is carried to all parts of the system
are as follows: Mastication, insalivation,
deglutition, stomach and intestinal digestion,
absorption, circulation and assimilation. Let us
run over them again hastily that we may not forget
them.
Mastication
is performed by the teeth-it is the chewing
process-the lips, tongue and cheeks assisting in
the work. It breaks up the food into small
particles and enables the saliva to reach it more
thoroughly.
Insalivation
is
the process of saturating the masticated food with
the saliva which pours into it from the salivary
glands. The saliva acts upon the cooked starch in
the food, changing it into dextrine and then into
glucose, thus rendering it soluable. This chemical
change is rendered possible by the action of the
pytaline in the saliva acting as a ferment and
changing the chemical constitution of those
substances for which it has an affinity.
Digestion
is performed in the stomach and small intestines
and consists in the conversion of the food-mass
into products capable of being absorbed and
assimilated. Digestion begins when the food
reaches the stomach. The gastric juice then pours
out copiously, and, becoming mixed up with and
churned into the food mass, it dissolves the
connective tissue of meat, releases fat from its
envelopes by breaking them up and transforms some
of the albuminous material, such as lean meat, the
gluten of wheat and white of eggs, into
albuminose, in which form they are capable of
being absorbed and assimilated. The transformation
occasioned by stomach digestion is accomplished by
the chemical action of an organic ingredient of
the gastric juice, called pepsin, in connection
with the acid ingredients of the gastric juice.
While
the process of digestion is being performed by the
stomach the fluid portion of the food-mass, both
that which has entered the stomach as fluids which
have been drunken, as well as the fluids liberated
from the solid food in the process of digestion,
is rapidly taken up by the absorbents of the
stomach and is carried to the blood, while the
more solid portions of the food-mass are churned
up by the muscular action of the stomach, as we
have stated. In about a half-hour the solid
portions of the food-mass begin slowly to leave
the stomach in the form of a grayish, pasty
substance, called chyme, which is a mixture of
some of the sugar and salts of the food, of
transformed starch or glucose, of softened starch,
of broken fat and connective tissue, and of
albuminose.
The
Chyme leaving the stomach, enters the small
intestine, as we have described and comes in
contact with the pancreatic and intestinal juices
and with the bile, and intestinal digestion
ensues. These fluids dissolve most of the food
that has not already been softened. Intestinal
digestion resolves the chyme into three
substances, known as (i) Peptone, from the
digestion of albuminous particles; (2) Chyle, from
the emulsion of the fats; (3) Glucose, from the
transformation of the starchy elements of the
food. These substances are, to a large extent,
carried into the blood and become a part of it,
while the undigested food passes out of the small
intestine through a trap-door-like valve into the
large bowel called the colon. of which we shall
speak bye-and-bye.
Absorption,
by which name is known the process by which the
above-named products of the food, resulting from
the digestive process, are taken up by the veins
and lacteals, is effected by endosmosis. The water
and the fluids liberated from the food-mass by the
stomach digestion are rapidly absorbed and carried
away by the blood in the portal vein to the liver.
The peptone and glucose from the small intestines
also reaches the portal vein to the liver through
the blood vessels of the intestinal villi, which
we have described. This blood reaches the heart
after passing through the liver, where it
undergoes a process which we will speak of when we
reach the subject of the liver. The chyle, which
is the remaining product of the food-mass in the
intestines after the peptone and glucose have been
taken up and carried to the liver, is taken up and
passes through the lacteals into the thoracic
duct, and is gradually conveyed to the blood, as
will be further described in our chapter on the
Circulation. In our chapter on the circulation we
will explain how the blood carries the nutriment
derived from the digested food to all parts of the
body, giving to each tissue, cell, organ and part
the material by which it builds up and repairs
itself, thus enabling the body to grow and
develop.
The
liver secretes the bile, which is carried to the
small intestine, as we have stated. It also stores
up a substance called glycogen, which is formed in
the liver from the digested materials brought to
it by the portal vein (as above explained).
Glycogen is stored up in the liver, and is
afterwards gradually transformed, in the intervals
of digestion, into glucose or a substance similar
to grape sugar. The pancreas secretes the
pancreatic juices, which it pours into the small
intestine, to aid in intestinal digestion, where
it acts chiefly upon the fatty portions of the
food. The kidneys are located in the loins, behind
the intestines. They are two in number and are
shaped like beans. They purify the blood by
removing from it a poisonous substance called urea
and other waste products. The fluid secreted by
the kidneys is carried by two tubes, called
ureters, to the bladder. The bladder is located in
the pelvis and serves as a reservoir for the
urine, which consists of waste fluids carrying
with it refuse matter of the system.
Before
leaving this part of the subject we wish to call
the attention of our readers to the fact that when
the food enters the stomach and small intestines
improperly masticated and insalivated—when the
teeth and salivary glands have not been given a
chance to do their work properly—digestion is
interfered with and impeded and the digestive
organs are overworked and are rendered unable to
accomplish what is asked of them. It is like
asking one set of workmen to do their own work in
addition to the work which should have been
previously performed by another set of men-it is
asking the railroad engineer to perform the duties
of firemen as well as his own—to keep the fire
going on an up grade and run the locomotive on a
dangerous bit of road at the same time. The
absorbents of the stomach and intestines must
absorb something —that is their
business—and if you do not give them the proper
materials they will absorb the fermenting and
putrefying mass in the stomach and pass it along
to the blood The blood carries this poor material
to all parts of the body, including the brain, and
it is no wonder that people complain of
biliousness, headache, etc., when they are being
self-poisoned in this way.
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