Page:Strength from Eating.djvu/43

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PROCESS OF DIGESTION.
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cipal part of the small intestines. Here it comes in contact with another fluid called the intestinal juice. This juice possesses the power pecular to itself of digesting all the various food elements, thus practically completing the work of digestion. The small intestines are supplied with a very large number of glands which absorb large quantities of the nourishment made ready by the various digestive juices with which the food had previously come in contact. From the small intestines the food is slowly forced into the colon where absorption still continues though in a much more limited degree.

For a technical description of the process of absorption of the nourishing elements of the food, I refer you to the following by Dr. J. H. Kellogg:

"The process of absorption begins almost as soon as food is taken into the mouth, and continues so long as any soluble nutriment can be extracted from the alimentary mass. The work of absorption is performed by two sets of absorbent vessels, minute veins, and lymphat-