The philosophy of eating. By Albert J. Bellows, M.D.

154

WHY BLOOD IS NOT PURE.

butter, superfine flour, and sugar, which contain but
very little nutriment for the blood or vital powers,
mixed perhaps with other articles containing the requisite elements, but out of proportion to the wants of the
system. Being supplied to repletion with carbonaceous
food, there was no room for other requisite principles,
and the results were inevitable. Her blood is colorless
and impure, and she is feeble and chlorotic, because
her food was deficient in the elements which constitute
good blood.
I have investigated scores, and perhaps hundreds of
such cases, and invariably find the principal cause to
be, that from childhood they have been fed on white
bread and butter, sweet cakes, flour puddings, piecrust, confectioneries, &c., which had kept the system
in a heated, feverish condition, with a deficiency of
fruits and vegetables, that assist in eliminating from
the system the impurities engendered by the excess of
carbon in the system, and a deficiency of coarse bread,
milk, fish, lean meat, &c., which contain the phosphorus, iron, and other mineral elements necessary for the
purity of the blood; and they had generally lost their
appetites for the necessary articles of food, and had
acquired instead a morbid desire for something strange
and unnatural, as chalk, slate pencils, pungent spices,
pickled limes, &c. The evils of these habits are generally increased by want of exercise to carry off accumulated impurities, and the blood becomes too poor to
be able to carry on the functions of the system. The
tissues 6f the lungs break down under the burdens