MY BODY TEMPLE

PART 4

DIGESTION

 Have you ever seen a Venus flytrap? This curious plant grows in North Carolina. It is called a flytrap because each of its leaves is something like a steel-trap, to use to catch flies.

 When a fly touches the leaf, the trap shuts up at once, and the poor fly is caught and cannot get away. The harder it tries to escape, the more tightly the trap closes upon it, until after a time it is crushed to death.

But we have yet to learn the most curious thing about this strange plant, which seems to act so much like an animal. If we open the leaf after a few days, it will be found that the fly has almost entirely disappeared.

The fly has not escaped, but a fluid formed inside of the trap, has dissolved it, and the plant has absorbed a portion of the fly. In fact, it has really eaten it. The process by which food is dissolved and changed so that it can be absorbed and may nourish the body, is called digestion (di-ges'-tion).

The Venus's-flytrap has a very simple way of digesting its food. Its remarkable little trap serves it as a mouth to catch and hold its food, and as a stomach to digest it. The arrangement by which our food is digested is more complicated. Let us study the different parts by which this wonderful work is done.

The Digestive Tube-The most important part of the work of digest­ing our food is done in a long tube within the body, called the digestive tube or ca­nal.

This tube is - twenty-five or thirty feet long in a full-grown man; but it is so coiled up and folded away that it takes little space. It begins at the mouth, and ends at the lower part of the trunk. Most of it is coiled up in the abdomen.

The Mouth-The space between the up­per and the lower jaw is called the mouth. The lips form the front part and the cheeks the sides. At the back part are three openings. One, the upper, leads into the nose.

There are two lower openings. One of these leads into the stomach, and the other leads to the lungs. The back part of the mouth joins the two tubes, which lead from the mouth to the lungs and the stomach, and is called the throat. The mouth contains the tongue and the teeth.

The Teeth-The first teeth, those which come when we are small children, are called temporary, or baby teeth. We lose these teeth as the jaws get larger and the second, or permanent, teeth take their place. There are twenty teeth in the first set, and thirty-two in the second. Very old per­sons sometimes have a third set of teeth. They buy them.

The Salivary (sal'-i-vary) Glands-There are three pairs of salivary glands. They form a fluid called the saliva (sa-li' -va). It is this fluid which moistens the mouth at all times. When we eat or taste something that we like, the salivary glands make so much saliva that we sometimes say the mouth waters. One pair of the salivary glands is at the back part of the lower jaw, in front of the ears. The other two pairs of glands are placed at the under side of the mouth. The saliva produced by the sali­vary glands is sent into the mouth through little tubes called ducts.

The Gullet-At the back part of the throat begins a narrow tube, which passes down to the stomach. This tube is about nine inches long. It is called the gullet, food pipe, or esophagus (e-soph'-a-gus).

The Stomach-At the lower end of the esopha­gus the digestive tube becomes enlarged, and has a shape somewhat like a pear. This is the stomach. In a full-grown person the stomach is suf­ficiently large to hold about three pints.

 At each end of the stomach is a narrow opening so arranged that it can be opened or tightly closed, as may be necessary. The upper opening allows the food to pass into the stomach, the lower one allows it to pass out into the intestines. This opening is called the pylorus (py-Io' -rus), or gatekeeper, because it closes so as to keep the food in the stomach until it is ready to pass out.

In the membrane which lines the stomach there are many little pocket-like glands, in which a fluid called the gastric juice is formed. This fluid is one of the most important of all the fluids formed in the digestive canal.

The Intestine (in­tes'-tine)- At the lower end of the stomach the digestive canal becomes narrow again. This narrow portion, called the intestine, is about twenty-five feet long in a grown person. The last few feet of the intestine is larger than the rest and is called the colon. This long tube is coiled up and snugly packed away in the abdomen. In the membrane lining the intestines are to be found little glands, which make a fluid called intestinal juice.

The Liver-Close up under the ribs, on the right side of the body, is a large brown-colored organ, called the liver. The liver is about half as large as the head, and is shaped so as to fit snugly into its comer of the abdomen. The chief business of the liver is to make a fluid called bile, which is very necessary for the digestion of our food.

The bile is a bitter fluid of a golden­ brown color. It is carried to the intestine by means of a little tube or duct, which enters the mall intestine a few inches below the stomach. When the bile is made faster than it is needed for immediate use, it is stored up in a little pear-shaped sac called the gallbladder, which hangs from the underside of the liver.

The liver is a very wonderful organ and does many useful things besides making bile. It aids in various ways in digesting the food, it helps to keep the blood pure by removing from it harmful substances which are formed within the body.

The Pancreas (pan'-cre-as)- The pancreas another large and very important gland which is found close to the stomach, lying just behind it in the abdominal cavity. The pancreas forms a fluid called the pancreatic juice, which enters the small intestine at nearly the same place as the bile.

The Spleen- Close to the pancreas, at the left side of the body, is a dark, roundish organ about the size of the fist, called the spleen. It is not known that the spleen has much to do the work of digestion, but it is so closely con­nected with the digestive organs that we need to know about it:

There are five important organs of digestion-the mouth, the stomach, the intestines, the pancreas, and the liver. There are five digestive fluids-saliva, gastric juice, bile, pancreatic juice, and intestinal juice.  =^..^=

    MY BODY TEMPLE 

PART 5

Digestion of a piece of Bread  

Let’s pretend that we have eaten a mouthful of bread and can watch it as it goes through all the different processes of digestion.

Mastication - First, we chew or masticate the food with the teeth. We use the tongue to move the food from one side of the mouth to the other, and to keep the food between the teeth.

Mouth Digestion - While the bread is being chewed, the saliva is mixed with it and begins digestion. The saliva moistens and softens the food, so that it can be easily swallowed and readily acted upon by the other digestive juices. You have noticed that if you chew a bit of hard bread a few minutes it becomes sweet. This is because the saliva changes some of the starch of the food into sugar.

After we have chewed the food, we swal­low it, and it passes down through the esopha­gus into the stomach.

Stomach Digestion - As soon as the morsel of food enters the stomach, the gastric juice begins to flow out of the little glands in which it is formed. This mixes with the food and digests other parts that the saliva has not digested. While this is being done, the stomach keeps moving and squeezing the food much as a baker kneads dough. This is done to mix the gastric juice with the food.

After an hour or two the stomach squeezes the food so hard that a little of it, which has been digested by the gastric juice and the saliva, goes out through the lower opening, the pylorus, of which we have already learned. As the action of the stomach continues, more of the digested food escapes, until all that is ready has gone out.

Intestinal Digestion - We sometimes eat a nut butter with bread, or take some other form of fat in our food; fats are not digested by the saliva or the gastric juice. When food passes out of the stomach into the small intestine, a large quantity of bile is poured upon it. This bile has been made beforehand by the liver and stored up in the gallbladder. The bile helps to digest fats, which the saliva and the gastric juice cannot digest.

The pancreatic juice does the same kind of work that is done by the saliva, the gastric juice, and the bile. It also finishes up the work done by these fluids. It is one of the most im­portant of all the digestive juices.

The intestinal juice digests nearly all the different elements of the food, so that it is ready to complete the wonderful process by which the food is made ready to enter the blood and to nourish the body.

While the food is being digested by the bile, the pancreatic juice, and intestinal juice, it is gradually moved along the intestines. Af­ter all the food which can be di­gested has been softened and dissolved, it are ready to be taken into the blood and sent through the body.

Absorption - If you put a dry sponge into water, it very soon becomes wet by soak­ing up the water. Indeed, if you only touch a corner of the sponge to the water, the whole sponge will soon become wet. We say that the sponge absorbs the water. It is in a somewhat similar way that the food is ab­sorbed by the walls of the stomach and intestines. When the food is absorbed, most of it goes into the blood vessels, which we shall learn in a future lesson.

Liver Digestion - After the food has been absorbed, most of it is carried to the liver, where the process of digestion is completed. The liver also acts like an inspector to examine the digested food and remove hurtful material that may be in it, like alcohol, mustard, pepper, and other irritating things.

The Thoracic Duct – Part of the food, mainly the digested fat, is absorbed by a portion of the lymphatic vessels called “Lacteals”, which empty into a small vessel called the thoracic duct. This duct passes upward in front of the spine and empties into a vein near the heart.

Isn’t it wonderful how God has set up all these things to do their job in our bodies and we don’t even know it is all happening. Truly - "I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139:14 =^..^=

    MY BODY TEMPLE 

PART 6

Our Eating Habits

Eating too fast is a common bad habit. When food is chewed quickly and gulped down, it is not made into tiny pieces and softened. Such food cannot be digested well.

Someone who eats too fast, also, often eats too much. The digestive organs can only do so much work. When too much food is eaten, it is not digested as it should be, and so it is not as nourishing to the body. Overeating is very common and can cause stomach trouble and may lead to being fat.

Many children make themselves sick by snacking between meals. Your stomach needs time to rest, just as legs and arms and other parts of the body do. We also should not eat close to bedtime.  The stomach needs to sleep also and if we go to bed with a stomach full of food, the stomach cannot rest. It has to go on working and you will not sleep as well either.

We should have regular times to eat our meals and if we are very tired, we should not eat, but instead we should rest. Our stomach can’t work well if we are too tired.

We should not eat foods high in sugar. They will ferment in our stomachs and make us sick. Candies also contain harmful chemicals in colors and artificial flavors that are not good to build up our bodies. Mixtures of milk and sugar are especially harmful and form alcohol in your body!

 Fats, oil, butter and margarine and other greasy foods are hurtful. Melted fats are especially harmful. Cheese, fried foods, and rich pastry are very poor foods. Too much fat in the diet can lead to heart disease and serious health problems. Fatty foods make the brain slow and dull also.

We should not eat flesh meats, spicy hot foods, or too many kinds of food at one meal. A simple diet is much more healthful. Nut milks and grain foods, as oatmeal, cracked wheat, whole wheat bread, with delicious fruits like apples, pears, and grapes, are some of the best foods.

Avoid very cold foods or liquids with our meals.

 Mustard, Ketchup, vinegar, pickles, pepper, and spices as well as baking soda, and baking powders are all more or less harmful. 

Salt should be used much less than it is. Very salty foods like chips and cheezies should be left out of our diet, if we want to be strong and healthy.

A very good habit is to drink one or two glasses of water at least ½ hour before we eat and not to drink with our meals. This wise plan can often cure a lot of stomach problems. If we take care of our stomach, our stomach will take care of us!  =^..^=  

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