Ugh!

Among scientific threats to human happiness has long lurked the possibility that somebody would take all the joy out of eating by evolving a diet of pure chemicals. Last week three St. Louis doctors, headed by William Harwood Olmsted, announced that they had done it. The mixture, they admit, is so nasty it has to be given by stomach tube.

In the Archives of Internal Medicine they told how they stir up a witches' broth containing all the essential amino acids (ammonia-containing compounds from which proteins are built), dextrose sugar, salt, gelatin, emulsified cottonseed or corn oil, water. This brew is fed in varying amounts, depending on how many calories are needed. Vitamins are given separately. Though some patients claim the stuff disagrees with them, it is actually so digestible that patients can be fed at night without waking them up. (The stomach tube stays in place day & night.)

Not yet a threat to healthy gourmets, the new diet has three medical uses:

P: As it contains no protein, doctors can use it to diagnose food allergy. If an allergic patient gets well on the diet, a food protein is almost certainly his allergen.

P: Because the chemical mixture is vitaminless and its exact composition is known, it can be used as a basic diet to determine the body's exact vitamin needs. With such a diet, the effect of adding or subtracting vitamins is clear-cut. Present vitamin charts, based on tests with natural foods, are only approximate.

P: The diet is very useful in treating typhoid fever. Doctors know that typhoid patients thrive on a hearty diet, but most typhoid patients do not feel like eating. Administered by tube, the synthetic diet also works better than ordinary food because it leaves almost no residue to irritate inflamed intestines. Result: some patients, even those with high fevers, actually gain weight while they are sick.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.