[36] “Further Investigations Among Fruitarians,” etc., p. 79.
I would also refer the reader to Professor C. F. Longworthy’s “Fruit and its Uses as Food” (Yearbook, U.S. Dept. of Agr.).
Speaking of the value of fruit, Dr Tibbles, in his “Food and Hygiene,” p. 174, says:
“The value and importance of fresh fruit, especially to dwellers in towns, cannot be too freely written about.... The organic salts in fruit arouse the appetite, and aid digestion, by increasing the flow of saliva, and, indirectly, of the gastric juice; they are stimulants and sialagogues. As the fruit reaches the intestines, the acids increase the activity of the chyme, and stimulate the secretions of the liver and the pancreas, the intestinal glands and muscles; their influence upon the blood is marked: they render it less alkaline, but _never acid_. By combining with a portion of the alkaline salts of the serum, the phosphoric acid increases the phosphates in the red blood cells; they are anti-scorbutic and of value in anæmia, general debility, and convalescence from acute illness. Fruits containing oxalates, as tomatoes, gooseberries and strawberries, are useful in amenorrhœa and for persons subject to bronchitis and asthma; such as contain salicylic acid—as strawberries, raspberries, currants, blackberries, and oranges—are a valuable addition to the dietary of rheumatic persons. The final stage in the digestion of fruit is the conversion of fruit acids and salts into alkaline salts, chiefly carbonates; they are therefore useful in scurvy, rheumatism, gout, and other diseases of the uric acid diathesis; they increase the secretion of the urine and its alkalinity—indeed they are one of the most certain agents to render it alkaline, to stimulate the kidneys, and indirectly the skin, and thereby increase the total excretion of salts and other materials. Briefly, fresh fruit is cooling, refreshing, and tends to correct constipation.”
Only recently, at the Congress of Surgery, Paris, 1909, Dr Victor Pauchet, surgeon of the American Hospital, stated—when indicating what in his opinion were the ideal bodily conditions for the successful performance of an operation—that it was necessary for the subject to have the colon and rectum empty; the bowels free from gas; the liver and kidneys washed with pure water in proper quantities, etc., and then went on to say: