Appendix 4 - The Laws of Health

William A Alcott

Why 114 – Digestion (What 105) Digested food is converted into blood.

Page 100-522 - "Next it is formed, by process partly vital, partly mechanical, and partly chemical, into a substance called chyme. This chyme, by means of processes equally complicated, is formed into chyle. And, lastly, the chyle - at last, a part of it - is formed into blood."

Page 101-523 - "The machinery concerned in the work of digestion may be considered under the five heads .... mastication, chymification, chylification, sanguification, and defecation." Comment – Sanguification (making blood) is not a part of digestion.

Score - Unverified

Why 115 – Making Blood (What 105)

The digested food is turned into blood in the lungs.

Page 101-528 - "The machinery of sanguification, by which term I mean the formation of blood

.....It is, however, generally considered as beginning with the lacteals and ending with the lungs." (529) - The lacteals are the numerous vessels in the coat of the intestine which take up the chyle after it is formed, Hence the chyle passes through the mesenteric glands, which may also, by possibility, have power to affect or influence it. ..... The thoracic duct conveys it thence into a large vein near the top of the left shoulder, where it mingles with the blood as it returns to the lungs and heart. All these parts - the lungs of course included - may be regarded as having an agency in the work of sanguification."

Score - Unverified

Why 116 – Function of Blood (What 105) The blood carries nutrition to all the body.

Page 5-27 - "We shall see, in its proper place that this blood is the source of all nutrition. That this blood, when made from good food, in a proper manner, and properly acted upon by the air in the lungs, furnishes a constant supply of rich particles, exactly adapted to the great work of building again the "old wastes", or, in other words, of renovation; as well as to aid the young in the work of growth."

Score - Verified

What 106 – Vegetables

Most vegetables (except potato) are not good for health.

Page 145-758 - "It (the appetite) asks for the worst things - …. cabbage, and the like." Page 151-793 - "(Foods not to be put in the stomach) Of the former kind is the onion; Page 153-806 - "It is quite amusing to observe what custom will do in the way of making

substances which are naturally offensive to us, not only tolerable, but absolutely agreeable. Thus even garlic"

Page 176-917 - "These (bulbous roots), except the potato, which would seem to belong to the farinaceous, are less valuable than farinaceous food; "

Score - Unverified

What 107 –Fried Food

Frying food is objectionable.

Page 172-896 - "Frying, by which is usually meant the fashionable process of preparing food in fat or grease, is always objectionable."

Comment – If grease means vegetable oil this is not a fully true statement.