The calcium requirements are especially great in pregnant women, largely on account of the growing foetus. A medium-sized foetus weighing from 3,000-3,200 grams contains from 40 to 43 grams of lime. Since the ossification of the skeleton takes place principally in the last four months of pregnancy, the mother is obliged to procure for each day of this period 0.33 gm. of lime for the foetus.
For her own metabolism the mother needs 1 g.m of lime daily. If her daily ration consists of 250 gm. meat, and 500 gm. of bread, with 50 gm. butter, and if, in addition, she drinks two quarts of water containing o.1 gm. of lime ( the water being taken as such, or in the form of soup, coffee, tea, etc.) the calcium content of this ratio is only 0.55 gm. a day. In such a contingency, both mother and child would suffer from lime deficiency. The natural consequence is that the quantities of lime that are required for the bony frame of the growing foetus are abstracted from the body of the mother; the results are observed in decaying teeth, nervousness and other phenomena of illness.
However, if the daily food allowance of this woman consists of 250 gm. meat, 500 gm. spinach, red cabbage, or other leaf or root vegetables, also 500 gm. rye bread, then the intake of lime would amount to 1.75 gm. a day, which would be sufficient. As already stated, it is an undeniable in lime and that, in consequence, it has become necessary to balance the lack by the administration of a suitable preparation of calcium ” Kalzana”.
According to Lorand, calciprivia or the body and osteomalacia resulting from it are in close relation to mental diseases. Weber stated years ago that, out of fifteen pelvis with osteomalacia which are in the pathological museum in Prague, six came from former patients in insane asylums. Wagner-Juaregg observed, in 1890, that mental disturbance are particularly frequent, during pregnancy and after labour, in regions where there is much osteomalacia.
GEOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS.
It is an old observation in medical practice that the population, in districts where soil and water contain much lime, is much healthier than the population in regions where there is less lime in soil and in drinking water. Instances of this are readily available.
For instance: Forbach, situated at the foot of the Vosges, has a sandstone soil, the whole region being poor in lime. The consequences are manifest in the state of health in people and animals. Pregnant women frequently have softening of bones so that they must walk on crutches. The children are rachitic and often cannot walk; even at the age of three and four years, their legs are bent. The cattle suffer greatly, fractured bones being very frequent in cows with calf. Horse breeding is quite impossible; the young pigs do not run around but mostly lie still.
Only a little over five kilometers from Forbach there are four villages (Gaubibingen, Thetingen, Teutlingen and Spichern) in a region where there is much lime. The difference that presents itself to the observers is astonishing. The people are vigorous and healthy, and the animals do not show evidences of feeble bones with their unfavourable consequences.
The counterpart of this is found in the results of examinations made of about 3,000 children from two to seven years of age and living in Gary, Indiana. The soil around Gary is poor in lime, as is also the drinking water. Examinations showed that 8.71 per cent. of the two-year old children and 87.7 per cent. of the eight-year-old children had bad teeth; 69 per cent. of the children examined showed affections of nose and throat, also swollen glands, enlarged or affected tonsils. More than one-third of the children had deficient vision. Poor development of muscles, round shoulders, hunch-back, protruding shoulder blades, bow-legs, bony defects of rachitic origin, anaemia, are prevalent and altogether too frequent.
Glandular affections, including goitre, are found almost only in regions with calciprivic soil and water. The drinking water of the city of Chicago is deficient in lime, which explains the frequency of goitre in that city.
Owing to the insufficient quantities of lime in the human body, for which the modern refined foodstuffs and the calciprivic drinking water are responsible, the cells of the glands do not contain enough calcium, leading to degeneration of the gland structure, especially in young persons. If the requisite mineral substances, more especially lime salts and silicium salts, are supplied sufficiently early, an improvement in the physical condition will become manifest promptly.
According to Loew and Emmerich, an adequate supply of lime salts will restore the disturbed conductivity of the nerves. The Swiss physician, Reinhardt (Nuench, Med. Woch., 1913, Nos. 26 and 48) reports that those of his patients in which he employed this very simple remedy, were astonished at the prompt results. It has been observed that high blood pressure, due to arteriosclerosis, may be restored to normal by the introduction of lime.
In rickets, also osteomalacia, deficiency in lime is always a factor which yields to appropriate medication. The preparations known as “Schuessler Tissue Salts” are the most appropriate means of calcium administration known. They also provide the only means of introducing into the body the necessary inorganic or mineral salts required for normal healthy functioning of the human or animal system whenever medicinal assistance is required.
MEAT SUBSTITUTES.
THERE are people who believe that meat is indispensable to the human body. Examination of human teeth and the teeth of the meat eating animals shows that men were not intended to eat flesh, fish, or fowl. There are people who believe that flesh makes flesh or muscle, that blood makes blood, that a vegetarian diet is weakening. The strongest races live on a lacto-vegetarian diet. Milk is liquid beef and extremely rich in protein, fat and other building substances, but it lacks iron. Among the best vegetarian substitutes for meat are peas, beans and lentils, cheese, eggs, etc. Peas, beans and lentils are extremely rich in body building materials, and many of the hardest workers live principally on these.
