frequently done by other foods
containing vegetable acids.

CHAPTER IX

DANGER IN FRUITS AND PICKLES

It is an error shared almost universally by both medical men and the
laity that fruits and raw foods are wholesome. Everyone is familiar with
the fact that fruits produce intestinal disturbances in children,--not
only when they are very young, but after their digestive apparatus is
fully developed. Rather curiously, however, instead of ascribing the
disturbances that follow to the real cause, we generally dismiss the
matter with the assertion that "early fruits are unhealthy," or trace the
resulting ill effects to some other equally imaginary factor. In reality
the reason why diarrhoea and other intestinal troubles so often occur
after eating fruits in the early spring is that the boy or girl after a
winter's fast greedily devours enormous quantities of them when they
first ripen, and disturbances follow in proportion to the amount and
character of these substances taken.

There can be no question that fruits, while extremely palatable, usually
produce trouble in dyspeptics, and even in those who still possess
unimpaired digestive organs ill effects quite constantly follow on the
heels of the taking of food of this character. Unfortunately, however,
the great majority of dyspeptics have symptoms that in no way outwardly
point toward digestive errors; as common examples, we might refer to the
blackheads, pimples and small boils, so frequently observed on the faces
of young boys and girls, or the rheumatic pains, and, at a later time,
the "Bright's disease," that occur in older people. When you tell such
patients that their trouble is indigestion, they are often mildly
indignant, and loudly protest that they can eat anything with impunity;
that they never have heart-burn, feelings of heaviness after eating,
pains in the abdomen, or other symptoms referable to the stomach and
intestines. We are rather disposed to be proud of our digestive powers,
just as we are of our bodily strength, and nothing is more common than
for chronic dyspeptics to maintain that they have never had indigestion
in their lives, and to resent any insinuation to the contrary.

Another popular error, almost universally accepted, is that fruits are
highly nutritious; as a matter of fact they consist almost wholly of
water, and of materials that are utterly indigestible. The latter
substances pass through the alimentary tract, therefo