Studies in the Regulation of Gastric Acidity

The story of the nutritive and digestive processes in man begins, like that of other branches of medicine, with the highly imaginative ideas of demons, spirits, and magic which swayed the ancients for century upon century. | The records of early Egyptian, Chinese and Hindu medicine are saturated with such superstitious ideas. The former believing that food was the chief source of disease and that digestion was aided by the activity of demon spirits, whereas indigestion resulted if the demon became angered. | On the other hand the Hindus were of the opinion that humors, "Vata", "Pitta”, and "Kafa” resided in the body and directed its digestive processes, assisted by "Pachaka" (Fire of digestion) which separated the nourishing portions from the rejected ones. And so it was with the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Persians and Medes. Their fantastic theories of digestion were no less absurb than those of the Egyptian or the Hindu. | Turning to the early Greeks, it at once becomes evident that their concepts of medicine in general were greatly influenced by their doctrines of philosophy, and later by the four elemental doctrines of Hippocrates. Hippocrates believed that digestion was a process of internal cooking or "coction" as performed by the cardinal fluids, blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile, - the whole process being one of "innate heat".

Grantor dc:publisher

Creighton University

Year dc:date.issued

1935

Author dc:creator

• O'Brien, Frank T.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wilhelmj, C.M.

Statement dc:rights

• A non-exclusive distribution right is granted to Creighton University and to ProQuest following the publishing model selected above.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/114243

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:cdr.creighton.edu:10504/114243