Digestive System
Most of all Eliments emanate from the intake of food which no doubt, supplies all the essential nutrients (such as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, salts, sugars, and minerals), An infected, stale, putrid and unnatural food is a basic causative of most of our illnesses.
Our teeth break the food into fine particles, with the help of saliva which is an alkaline fluid, pouring into the mouth from the salivary glands. If saliva does not get mixed up with food, the finely broken food particles cannot get liquefied. Moreover, the mixture of saliva also renders a suitable taste to our meals. In a liquefied form, the food descends through the oesophagus (food pipe) down to the stomach.
Gullet is like a muscular organ and forces the food downwards. Stomach is a muscular bag that is lined by a glandular mucus membrane. It releases gastric juices which consist of salts, pepsin, water, and hydrocyanic acid. Food is churned in the stomach by moving it up and down.
When fully pulverized, the proteins are converted to such a form that they may pass through the walls of the stomach and get absorbed β in order to nourish the body. Now proteins and starches are acted upon, even if not properly digested. Fat and oil are also broken up and oil is released. Now the food passes into a long curled up tube, called small intestines. Now various digestive juices mix up with the food.
Liver is the largest organ of the body, is situated on the right side, just under the diaphragm, and weighs 3-4 pounds.
It has fine tubes (called also bile ducts) which secrete bile into the bile ducts so as to join together and form a hepatic duct that moves the bile to duodenum which is the first part of the small intestine. Bile breaks fats and oil into small drops. Liver also stores sugar which is released into the body as and when required by the body.
Pancreas is situated just behind the stomach and pancreatic ducts, release pancreatic juices which help to act on facts, protein, and starches, besides helping sugar to metabolize. The intestine helps in the absorption and digestion of food which can now pass on to the intestinal walls, for being taken into the blood.
Food now stays in the small intestine for about twelve hours and then slowly passes on to the large intestine which has not to perform any digestive process but has to simply retain food for 24 to 30 hours. The food, due to lack of water, hardens therein and gets ready for being expelled via rectum and anus, in the form of feces.