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Digestion and ©yspepsia 
 
 A 
 
 COMPLETE EXPLANATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE DIGESTIVE PROCESSES, 
 
 WITH THE SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT OF 
 
 DYSPEPSIA 
 
 *imD OTHER 
 
 DISORDERS OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS, 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 BY R. T. TKALL, M.D., 
 
 Author of "The Hydropathic Encyclopedia,'* "Hygienic Hand-book," "Thf 
 True Healing Art," "The Bath, its History and Uses," 
 " Hydropathic Cook-book, ' etc. 
 
 New York: 
 FOWLER & WELLS CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 27 East 21st Street. 
 
 London: 
 L. N. FOWLER & CO., 
 7 Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus. 
 
Entered according to Act of 
 By SAMUEL 
 In the Office of the Librarian 
 
 Congress, in the year 1873, 
 R. WELLS, 
 
 of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 ORPHANS' STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY — CHURCH CHARITY FOUNDATION, BROOKLYN. 
 
(j>4t*.33 
 
 REM OTE STORAGE 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THIS work, now offered to the public, is a Summary of the 
 data which I have been collecting for more than a quarter of a 
 century, with regard to the nature, causes, complications, and 
 proper treatment of the diseases of the digestive organs ; and 
 an experience of more than thirty years, during which time I 
 have had the professional management of several thousands of 
 invalids (besides hundreds which I have treated through corres- 
 pondence), a large proportion of whom were dyspeptics, has 
 convinced me that the theories advanced and the practice 
 recommended in this volume, are true and successful. I have 
 only to add, that I have not in any case administered medi- 
 cine, but have relied exclusively on Hygienic agencies as 
 remedial resources. 
 
 R. T. T. 
 
 Hygeian Home. i 
 Florence flights, N. J. J 
 
 702568 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I.-DIGESTION. 
 
 Chapters Page 
 
 Preface 5 
 
 Introduction 7 
 
 I. — Nutrition II 
 
 II. — Insalivation 13 
 
 III. — The Teeth 19 
 
 IV. — Deglutition 34 
 
 V. — Chymification 35 
 
 VI. — Chylification 43 
 
 VII. — Intestinal Digestion 45 
 
 VIII. — Absorption of the Nutrient Elements 56 
 
 IX. — Aeration of the Food Elements 59 
 
 Tobacco-using 64 
 
 Tight Lacing 68 
 
 Position and Malposition 74 
 
 I»AIiT II.-DY8PEP8IA. 
 
 X. — Nature of Dyspepsia 82 
 
 XI. — Special Causes of Dyspepsia 86 
 
 XII. — Symptoms of Dyspepsia 94 
 
 XIII. — Dyspepsia and the Cachexies , 1 10 
 
 XIV. — Principles of Treatment 114 
 
 XV.— Food 115 
 
 XVI. -Drink 120 
 
 XVII.— Exercise 122 
 
 XVIII. - Bathing 127 
 
 XIX.— Clothing 132 
 
 XX.— Sleep . 136 
 
 XXL— Ventilation 139 
 
 XXII.— Light 143 
 
 XX1IL— Temperature 144 
 
 XXIV.— Mental Influences 146 
 
 XXV. —Occupation 149 
 
 Appendix 155 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 We are a nation of dyspeptics ; and if we can believe the evidences of 
 our senses and the testimony of physicians, we are growing worse continually. 
 Where is this devitalizing tendency to end ? There are writers and book- 
 makers enough on this subject, but, unfortunately, our anti-dyspeptic litera- 
 ture, like the remedy it recommends, is more extensive than useful. Many 
 books have been written by physicians, regular and irregular, to advocate 
 some favorite theory or hobby, or commend some plan of medication in 
 which the author had a professional or pecuniary interest. And a still 
 greater number of both have flooded the country with no other motive on 
 the part of their proprietors, than to enhance the sale of some nostrum in 
 the shape of some " Nervous Antidote;" "Blood Food;" "Bitters;" 
 "Tonic ;" " Hypophosphite," or Anti-disease Mixture. All of the litera- 
 ture extant calculated to instruct the people in the proper methods for pre- 
 venting dyspepsia, and enabling them to treat themselves when sick, with- 
 out employing the doctor or patronizing the drug shop, is exceedingly lim- 
 ited ; and even that little has an extremely limited demand. 
 
 The public mind has been so long accustomed to rely on medicine to 
 remove the penalties of transgression, when persistent disobedience to the 
 laws of health has resulted in disease, that remedy and " apothecary stuff " 
 have come to be regarded as "one and inseparable." It is a delusion, 
 however, which has ruined more than one of the nations of the earth, and 
 which is now insidiously but not the less surely undermining the stamina 
 of the American people. 
 
 " Every one is more or less dyspeptic now-a-days," is a common saying ; 
 and because every one is ailing in this particular manner, it seems to be no- 
 body's business, except *hose who make opportunity of misfortune. It 
 should be the first business of all. It should be the first business of the 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Christian, the philanthropist, the statesman, the legislator, the schoolteacher 
 and especially the physician ; for a dyspeptic race never did and never will 
 permanently maintain any progressive government, or liberal institutions, 
 or reformatory measures, if indeed they can do anything except relapse 
 into barbarism or slavery, as have the nations of old. 
 
 The mortality of dyspepsia makes no alarming exhibit in our "vital ( 
 statistics." So much the worse ; for the causes of constitutional decine 
 are overlooked. The dyspeptic person has an ever present predisposition 
 to almost all forms of chronic disease. Indeed the dyspeptic condition is 
 usually regarded as a mere symptom of some other malady, which receives 
 the nosological name, and to which the death is accredited. 
 
 In the mortuary statistics of the city of New York, for the last year, dys- 
 pepsia is not mentioned as the cause of the death of a single one of the 
 32,647 deaths. But the fearful record appears under other names. The 
 fact that the increased mortality of 1872 over that of 187 1 reaches the enor- 
 mous figures of 5,500, is conclusive that something is operating among us 
 like a continual pestilence, predisposing to a multitude of diseases, and 
 rendering the system powerless to overcome their special causes. 
 
 Dyspepsia is the condition that almost always precedes consumption ; in- 
 deed, it may be said to constitute its strongest and most prevalent predis- 
 position. Dyspepsia in early life, and consumption in middle life, stand 
 to each other in the relation of cause and consequence. More than three- 
 fourths, and probably seven-eighths, of all the consumptives in adult life, 
 were dyspeptics in youth. 
 
 It is an important fact that nearly all affections termed scrofulous and 
 tuberculous are due essentially to that kind of Cachexia whose more prom- 
 inent manifestations are symptoms of indigestion. Imperfect nutrition is 
 the very essence of the long catalogue of chronic diseases which are said to 
 consist in a " depraved habit of body," " plethora," "anaemia," scrofula, 
 scurvy, and other morbid diatheses. 
 
 The deaths in New York, in 1872, of scrofulous and tuberculous affec- 
 tions, are put down at 6,023 ; consumption alone gives us the fearful figures 
 of 4,274. Then there are 3,479 deaths credited to that mythical phrase, 
 "disorders of the nervous system," nearly all of which are the sequelae 
 of impaired digestion. We have here a record of nearly fourteen thousand 
 deaths attributable to diseases intimately connected with indigestion, and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 9 
 
 which could never have existed, certainly not to a fatal degree, without its 
 prior existence. But if we were to pursue the analysis through , the whole 
 catalogue, we should be obliged to add several thousand more to our list of 
 deaths essentially due to dyspepsia. Diseases of the liver and kidneys, 
 gastritis, enteritis, heart-diseases, bronchitis, many cases of pneumonia, 
 most cases of apoplexy and paralysis, and a majority of bowel complaints- 
 cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, colic, constipation, gall stones, intestinal 
 concretions, worms, &c, and nine-tenths of the cases of convulsions in 
 children, have their predisposing causes and all their dangers, aside from 
 medical treatment, in that condition of defective or depraved nutrition to 
 which the term indigestion is applicable, and to which it usually is applied 
 in the generic sense. 
 
 If we take New York as the basis of a calculation for our whole country, 
 the result is frightful ; and sufficiently alarming if we discount fifty per- 
 cent, which would render our figuring within the range of probability, if 
 not of certainty. It would give us a national mortality of nearly one mil 
 lion, and a mortality attributable to dyspepsia of nearly half a million. 
 
 One thing is certain. The American race must arrest its dyspeptic ten- 
 dency, or die out. The Irish, the German, and other foreign races, of 
 nerve, stomachs and muscle, and of more ability to maintain vitality in 
 themselves and transmit it to offspring, will ere long possess the land, un- 
 less our devitalizing habits are reformed. Already some of our older States 
 are in decadence in this respect, the births not equalling the deaths. And 
 the general repugnance of American wives to become mothers is more 
 attributable to the general dyspeptic condition which unfits them to b* 
 mothers, and renders maternity painful and perilous, than to all other 
 causes combined. 
 
Arbor Vit^. 
 
PART I. 
 
 DIGESTION*. 
 
 CH APTER I. 
 NUTRITION. 
 
 Nutrition is tne aggregate of all the organic processes. It 
 may be distinguishable into digestion and assimilation. Dis- 
 integration is the separation and expulsion of the debris, or 
 waste matters of the structures. Digestion, in the proper sense 
 of the word, means the preparation of the food for assimilation. 
 It comprehends insalivation, solution, chymification, chylifi- 
 cation, and aeration. A brief exposition of the Physiology of 
 Nutrition, in the order of the digestive processes, will the better 
 enable us to understand the disorder of the same processes, 
 which constitutes indigestion or dyspepsia. And to make the 
 subject more intelligible to the non-professional reader, let us 
 take an article of food, an apple, if you please, and trace it 
 through all of its changes from the tree which produces it, to 
 the tissue which assimilates it. 
 
 But, in order to understand the illustrations, the reader 
 must steadily keep in mind a few propositions which are fun- 
 damental, and which, except the last three, are in direct an- 
 tagonism with the doctrines taught in the text-books of our 
 medical colleges. These are : 
 
 i. All the actions and changes of living organisms are vital, 
 not chemical. There is no chemistry in living structure. Hence 
 all attempts to explain the problems of life by chemical data 
 must forever be fallacious. 
 
 II 
 
T2 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 2. In the relations between dead and living matter, the liv- 
 ing acts on the dead. Hence medicines do not act on the 
 living organs or structure in virtue of inherent or elective affin- 
 ities, as is taught in the works on Materia Medica and Thera- 
 peutics, but, on the contrary, are resisted and rejected by the 
 living organs and structures. Nor do poisons act on the 
 living system, as is taught in the works on Toxicology and 
 Medical Jurisprudence, but contrariwise, the living system acts 
 in relation to them. 
 
 3. Diseases are not entities, nor processes necessarily inim- 
 ical to vitality, nor materials nor forces at war with the vis 
 medicatrix naturce, as taught in the works on Pathology, but, on 
 the contrary, all diseases are remedial efforts, whose object is the 
 defence and purification of the vital organism, and the repara- 
 tion of the deranged structures. 
 
 4. Food, drink, air, and other " Hygienic agencies," are in 
 no sense " stimulants," as taught in the standard works on 
 Dietetics ; nor do they in any sense act on or do anything to 
 the living organs, as taught by the chemico-physiologists * but, 
 on the contrary, they are acted on by living structures. 
 
 5. Neither medicines nor foods possess any ' ' properties " 
 which they impart to the living structures, as is taught in all of 
 our medical schools, with a single exception ; but on the con- 
 trary, they possess inorganic elements and organic compounds 
 which are rejected or appropriated by living structures. 
 
 6. Poisons are those agents which are rejected from the vital 
 domain (emetics, cathartics, tonics, stimulants, narcotics, etc.), 
 and foods are those substances which are usable in the forma- 
 tion of the bodily structures. 
 
 7. The vegetable kingdom feeds only on inorganic or cnem- 
 ical elements in a state of solution, transforming them into 
 organic products, or proximate elements, which proximate 
 elements, as combined in the processes of vegetable growth, 
 constitute food for animals and man. 
 
 8. Animals and men cannot feed on inorganic or chemical 
 elements, these invariably being to them in the relation of poi; 
 
INSALIVATION. 
 
 «3 
 
 sons, nor can any organism, except that of the vegetable, 
 produce food of any kind. Hence animals that eat other 
 animals can only get such aliment as they have received from 
 the vegetable kingdom. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 INSALIVATION. 
 
 The first act of digestion, after prehension, or taking the 
 food into the mouth, is mastication. The object of mastication 
 is insalivation. Every particle of food should be mingled with 
 saliva, or digestion cannot be properly performed. And here, 
 in the outset, we see one of the most prolific sources of disease in 
 i 1 high civilization" — imperfect mastication. As meals are 
 presented at ordinary tables, and in all hotels and boarding- 
 houses (except a few of those which are called Hygienic), 
 very few dishes are in a condition to secure mastication, or that 
 even admit of chewing ; while the few which might be masti- 
 cated more or less, are hurried into the stomach, or washed 
 down with milk, tea, coffee, water, or some kind of alcohol- 
 ized or otherwise medicated fluid. Those who would have 
 perfect digestion should not drink anything at meals. Drink- 
 ing should always be done before, after, or between meals. 
 
 Many physicians, and some Hygienists of loud pretensions, 
 are very fond of milk themselves, and very fond of recommend- 
 ing it as a leading article of food for all enfeebled conditions of 
 the digestive organs — dyspepsia, liver complaints, nervous debil- 
 ity, consumption, etc. — and even in fevers. And some of 
 them seem to be ' ' obsessed " with the chemico-physiological 
 phantasy that milk, like fish, is a peculiarly phosphorizing ali- 
 ment, *nd hence marvellously conducive to brain-tissue and 
 mental power. 
 
 Btif such advice is always bad. Many patients can survive 
 it, and many will improve in spite of it, provided the sum total 
 of all their other habits have been changed for the beuer 
 
DIGESTION. 
 
 Milk cannot be among the better articles of the dietary for 
 adults in any case. Why ? They do not masticate it. 
 
 It is true that milk, when pure and normally produced (I do 
 not mean the commercial article), contains all the nutrient 
 elements that the various structures require ; but, unless insa- 
 livated, it cannot be properly elaborated and assimilated. 
 How well it can be used depends, of course, on the more or 
 less healthy condition of the digestive organs. With some it 
 seems to agree very well ; and the same may be said of much 
 worse things. With others it disagrees very decidedly, and in 
 all bad cases of dyspepsia, consumption, or biliousness, it in- 
 variably aggravates. It is also especially pernicious in all of 
 those complicated and obscure cases of indigestion to which 
 the phrase, nervous debility, is usually applied, as I have 
 demonstrated in many hundreds of cases. 
 
 It is said in reply to these objections to milk as an article of 
 diet for persons after the period of infancy, that nursing 
 children, and the young of all mammalia thrive on it, that they 
 eat almost nothing else until near the " weaning-time. " Ad- 
 mitted. But infants take it "the natural way." They masti- 
 cate it. They eat it. They do not drink it. They take it drop 
 by drop and insalivate it particle by particle, as it flows from 
 the mothers breast, or from the nursing bottle when this is 
 properly adjusted. If the milk is swallowed too fast, as will be 
 the case if the mother uses too much slop-food, or drinks 
 largely of tea or coffee at her meals, or if the nursing bottle has 
 too copious a delivery, or if rapidly fed with a spoon, the 
 child will throw it up ; and if this habit is long persisted in, the 
 milk will ferment more or less, the child have a sour stomach, 
 flatulence, acrid eructations, canker in the mouth, etc. In a 
 word, "the dear little fellow" will be a miserable little dyspep- 
 tic. The same things will occur if the child inherits, because 
 of the erroneous dietetic habits of one or both parents, a debili- 
 tated or imperfect condition of the digestive organs, rendering 
 the secretion of the saliva and gastric juice deficient in quantity 
 or depraved in quality. Obstinate constipation, chronic diar- 
 rhoea, erysipelatous eruptions, bilious humors, scalled head, etc., 
 
INSALIVATION. 
 
 15 
 
 are among the affections which are frequently congenital and con- 
 stitutional, because of the dietetic errors of those whose sacred 
 duty it was to transmit to them a sound organization — or none. 
 
 I would have no objection to pure milk as an article of food 
 for adults, provided they masticate it. But this is never done. 
 The adult always drinks it, and never eats it. If he takes it 
 with solid food, bread and milk, for example, the fluid or milk 
 is swallowed (drunk) before the bread is masticated (eaten), 
 or the whole is bolted down unmasticated together. It would 
 be impossible, or at the least very awkward for ' ' children of a 
 larger growth, " to take milk as infants do. What young lady 
 or gentleman would not regard it as a huge joke, or a down- 
 right insult to be presented, at a restaurant, with a glass of milk 
 and a straw or glass tube through which to suck it, as though 
 it were a i ' brandy smasher, " or a rumified glass of soda water ? 
 Nearly all adults who use milk at meals, sip or drink it as they 
 do water or other liquids. 
 
 The practical rule deducible from these considerations is, 
 that all kinds of food which are only semi-solid, or composed 
 of solid particles diffused in water, as puddings, stews, mushes, 
 gruels, soups, etc., should always be taken with dry bread, 
 hard cracker, green apples, or something similar, and eaten 
 very slowly. The common practice is the reverse ; the more 
 fluid dishes are spooned down as rapidly as the process of de- 
 glutition can be performed, and the solid material, more or 
 less masticated, hurried after it. 
 
 The disease termed Mumps (Parotitis) is an inflammation 
 of the parotid glands ; and when both are affected at the same 
 time, the mouth is very dry ; mastication cannot be performed 
 without pain, nor can the " sensible properties " of food be 
 recognized as in the normal state. If strong acids are then 
 taken into the mouth, as vinegar, a peculiar benumbing sen- 
 sation is experienced. Those who use tobacco, alcohol, or 
 condiments excessively, have a condition of the salivary 
 glands not unlike chronic parotitis. 
 
 We will the better appreciate the importance of the insali- 
 
i6 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 vation of our food if we notice the ample provision that nature 
 has made to ensure it 
 
 Fig. i. 
 
 In Fig. i. all of the salivary glands are represented in their natural situation. 
 1. The Parotid gland, extending from the zygomatic arch of the cheek-bone to the 
 angle of the jaw below. 2. Its duct, termed the duct of Steno. 
 
 3. The Sub-maxillary gland. 4. Its duct. 5. Sub-Lingual gland. 
 
 There are no less than six glands appropriated to the work 
 of secreting from the blood the indispensable digestive fluid 
 termed saliva ; two parotids, situated one on each side of the 
 head, above the articulation of the lower jaw and near the 
 phrenological organ of alimentiveness ; two sublinguals under 
 the tongue, and two submaxillary, between the others. One 
 of each of these glands is represented in the illustration, Fig. i. 
 \ The location of the salivary glands shows their intimate 
 relation to mastication, as well as to the perception or recog- 
 nition of alimentary substances. The proximity of the two 
 large parotid glands to the organs of alimentiveness explains 
 why the ' ' mouth waters " instantly when a luscious peach, or 
 a basket of ripe strawberries (with or without the cream) 
 comes within the range of vision ; and the near proximity of 
 the other salivary glands to the tip of the tongue, explains why 
 savory substances in contact with that organ, so readily excite 
 a flow of saliva. Again, they are all so distributed as to be 
 
INSALIVATION. 
 
 excited to action by all the motions of the tongue and jaws, 
 when in the act of mastication. 
 
 That the salivary secretion is sufficient for moistening all 
 food that it is proper to swallow, is proved by the fact that no 
 true Hygienist ever experiences any thirst while eating ; and 
 no one who has a normal secretion of saliva, and who tho- 
 roughly masticates his food, will ever desire to drink at meals, 
 provided the food is of proper material, properly cooked, and 
 not improperly seasoned. It is true, however, that high 
 seasoning of all kinds, all indigestible admixtures, and all 
 thirst-provoking condiments, necessitate a corresponding degree 
 of water-drinking while eating. But this is only on the prin- 
 ciple of the lesser of two evils. 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 The provision for moistening and 
 insalivating the milk on which chil- 
 dren may properly subsist, is well 
 shown in Fig. 2, which is a repre- 
 sentative of a single lobule of the 
 parotid gland of an infant, inject- 
 ed with mercury, and magnified 
 fifty diameters. 
 
 Lobule of Parotid Gland. 
 
 One of the great and increasing evils of imperfect mastication 
 is decaying teeth. It is a law of all vital organisms that every 
 structure or part must do its own work or die. If a hand or 
 an arm was not exercised it would soon perish. Every organ 
 and structure pertaining to individual life, that is not duly ex- 
 ercised, will be correspondingly enfeebled. Do we not have a 
 sufficient, as well as a sad illustration of this subject in the tens 
 of thousands of dentists ; in several dental colleges, and in the 
 immense establishment in Philadelphia for the manufacture of 
 artificial teeth, to say nothing of the instruments for pulling the 
 rotting teeth out, which are a part of every country physician's 
 outfit ? 
 
 In a majority of cases, the teeth of our fast-living Americans 
 begin to decay in childhood. A young lady or gentleman 
 with a sound set of teeth is an exception to the general rule. In 
 
i-8 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 thousands of instances the young man or young woman needs 
 a set of artificial teeth before he or she is ready for the mar- 
 riage relation. And if both parents are teethless in early life, 
 the prospectus dentatus is bad for the rising generation. 
 
 If the teeth were properly treated they would never decay. 
 There is no more reason, except abuse, why the teeth should 
 ulcerate or become loose, than there is for the fingers or toes, 
 or the ears or nose, to rot and fall ofT. The teeth are the 
 densest, firmest of all organic structures, and should be the 
 very last, instead of the first, to decay. 
 
 Domestic animals that are permitted to live normally never 
 have decaying teeth. No matter to what age the animal lives, 
 its teeth will be found perfect in the skeleton. And such would 
 be the case with every human being if the teeth were not 
 abused by non-use. 
 
 It ought to be known to all, as it is known to those who 
 have lost their teeth, or a part of them, that a whole set of 
 sound teeth is as essential to comfort as it is to health. Nothing 
 but thorough mastication, and complete insalivation can enable 
 one fully to realize the properties of food. All proper food is 
 pleasant to the unperverted taste, and the palate relishes it with 
 a zest proportioned to its own integrity, and the fineness to 
 which chewing reduces it into molecular particles. Those whose 
 teeth are too tender to masticate solid food well, or have not 
 teeth enough remaining to do it, have little idea of the taste of 
 an apple, a potato, or even a piece of bread, made of nothing 
 but wheat-meal and water. They require salt, vinegar, pep- 
 per, sugar, butter, or something else, to make their victuals 
 " taste good." But no amount of salines, acids, or pungents 
 can render it so delicious and satisfactory as natural appetite 
 and proper mastication ; nor is there any remedy for decaying 
 teeth, rotting jaws, bleeding gums, and tartareous excrescences, 
 except exercising the teeth in mastication. 
 
 This whole subject is so well explained and illustrated in the 
 Science of Health for August, 1872, that, with the permission of 
 the publisher, I transcribe the entire article 
 
THE TEETH. 
 
 CHAPTER III.- — THE TEETH THEIR USE AND CARE. 
 
 Persons who have any pretensions to culture and refinement, 
 regard the teeth as ornamental, as well as useful. Before 
 
 Fig. 3. — Complete Set of Permanent Teeth, Showing the Nervous Connections. 
 In this illustration the bony matter has been carefully cut away to show the roots of 
 the teeth and the nerves which connect them with the brain. 
 
 the age of dentistry, the loss of a tooth by decay was a life-long 
 misfortune. Now,, if one or more of the teeth decay or by 
 accident are broken and lost, skilful dentistry supplies by arti- 
 ficial means those which match the original, and the mouth is 
 kept shapely and beautiful. 
 
 Within the last thirty years, the science and art of dentistry 
 has made very great progress. Not only can the teeth be 
 treated in such a way as generally to preserve them, but when 
 they commence to decay, the cavities can be so prepared and 
 filled that they last or promise to last a lifetime ; whereas, half 
 a century ago, decay once commencing would go on, causing 
 intense suffering to the patient and an early loss of the tooth. 
 
 We often regret to see persons with excellent sets of teeth 
 permit them to remain without being cleaned, the particles of 
 
20 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 food being allowed to lodge between them and decay, creating 
 corrosive acid, which destroys the enamel, besides greatly de- 
 praving the odor of the mouth. 
 
 Every person, after eating, should carefully clean the teeth 
 , from all particles of food with a quill or wood pick, and then, 
 
 Fig. 4. — Diseased Teeth. 
 
 Fig. 4 — Represents the jaws, with several of the teeth in a diseased state. Some 
 portions of the bony matter have been removed in order to exhibit the parts affected. 
 All the teeth which are numbered, except No. 3, which is entirely sound, are carious, 
 the disease having penetrated to the nerve. Nos. 1, 4 and 7 show the jaw and teeth in 
 an early stage of disease. Nos. 2, 5, 6, 8 and 9 are ulcerated at the roots. Nos. 2, 5 and 
 9 having the bony matter removed to show the ulceration at the roots. No. 5 shows 
 the ulcer in an early stage 
 
THE TEETH. 
 
 21 
 
 with water, not very cold, and a brush, clean them carefully. 
 In this way many a set of teeth could be kept sound and hand- 
 some through life, which by being neglected become diseased 
 and decay early. Some people pick the teeth with a penknife 
 or with a pin, which we think an erroneous practice. The 
 use of hot drinks, and on the contrary, ice-water in hot weather, 
 tends to the decay of the teeth, because it produces a fever, 
 and sudden changes in the system, which seriously affect 
 them. 
 
 Disease of the teeth appears in several forms. One is by 
 caries or decay from the surface. Another is by ulceration at 
 the root, and a third is by tartar, which displaces the gum and 
 leads to the decay or absorption of the bony matter constituting 
 the sockets of the teeth, called alveolar process. 
 
 The remedy for tartar is to have a skilful dentist remove 
 it as soon as it is observed. Indeed an examination should 
 be made by him occasionally to detect its presence. Proper 
 care of the teeth by the use of a brush after every meal would 
 generally prevent all accumulation of tartar. 
 
 These conditions we illustrate by means of several en- 
 gravings. 
 
 The Indians are proverbial for their good teeth. We have 
 examined many Indian skulls and have frequently found the 
 teeth worn down to the gums with not a speck or decayed spot 
 to be found on them. Besides, we do not find on Indian 
 teeth tartar, or salivary calculus, as is too often the case with 
 civilized men's. There may be many reasons why the teeth of 
 ) Indians are in better condition than the white mans. The 
 chief one perhaps is, that they give their teeth ample exercise. 
 If a cow is fed on food that requires no mastication, her teeth 
 become decayed. If she crops the grass with her incisors, 
 and grinds it with the molars, they will last her life-time in good 
 condition; but let her be put into a stable and fed on still-slops, 
 and the teeth at once begin to decay, as also the bony structure 
 in which they stand. The Indian eats parched corn. Having 
 no grist mill, he grinds his food with his teeth, and the result 
 
22 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 is, every tooth is exercised. If we eat porridge, broth, stews, 
 and everything else cooked softly, and get no exercise for the 
 teeth, they become to us almost useless ; the gums become 
 unhealthy, the teeth decay, and give us a world of trouble. 
 
 Moreover the Indian sleeps with his mouth shut, breathes 
 through his nostrils, and does not draw the cold air rapidly over 
 his teeth. This is true of all animals. The canine and feline 
 tribes, that pant when they exercise violently, open their 
 mouths and breathe through the mouth ; but they sleep with 
 their mouths shut. White men sometimes breathe the live- 
 long night chiefly through the mouth. The celebrated Mr. 
 Catlin, who writes on Indian habits, attributes bad teeth to the 
 white man, in consequences of sleeping with his mouth open. 
 
 Fig. 5.— Complete Set of Infant Teeth at Four Years. 
 
 Always beware of using scouring material on the teeth. A 
 little fine soap on the tooth brush, to make a pleasant lather 
 in the mouth, is believed to be favorable to the health of both 
 mouth and teeth. One half of the tooth-powder have acids in 
 them which injures the enamel of the teeth. Any gritty sub- 
 stance which tends to wear off the enamel is bad. 
 
 In cities, quack peddlers of tooth-powders may be found at 
 
INSALIVATION. 
 
 23 
 
 the corners of the streets. They will get some dirty boy's 
 mouth open and with strong acid make his teeth shine like 
 ivory. This they do as an advertisement. We never fail on 
 seeing a crowd of ignoramuses gathered around such a quack 
 to speak frankly to them, and advise them to avoid it alto- 
 gether. One of these men once overheard our remark, and 
 said "What is it to you?" Our reply was, "We wouldn't 
 put such acid on our teeth for five hundred dollars." His 
 crowd of customers vanished. 
 
 Fig. 6. — Teeth of a Cow Fed on Natural Food. 
 
 Having exhibited the anatomical situation of a complete 
 set of permanent teeth, showing their nervous connections, 
 and also a permanent set of teeth in a condition of disease in 
 various stages, we come now to consider infantile teeth, and 
 introduce an engraving for that purpose. The bony structure 
 is cut away on the jaws to show the roots of the milk teeth, as 
 they are called, and also to show the ultimate teeth or the 
 permanent set behind the milk teeth. 
 
 Before birth the teeth are organized rudimentally, two sets 
 of them, one above the other ; and at birth, existing in the 
 jaw entirely below its service, there is a set of teeth, and under 
 this set there is a little sack, which is to be, when developed, 
 a permanent tooth. 
 
 In the engraving one half of twenty teeth are represented. 
 
24 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 In the adult mouth there are thirty-two teeth. In the rear of the 
 mouth of this engraving there will be seen the rudiments of the 
 permanent teeth, over which no milk teeth are developed. In 
 the child's mouth then there are twenty teeth, and in the adult 
 mouth thirty-two, including the wisdom teeth, which come 
 late, at from twenty to fifty years of age. 
 
 Fig. 7.— Jaw of a Cow Fed on Hot Still-Slops. 
 
 The infantile teeth are small, being adapted to the size of 
 the jaw. When the child's age advances these teeth separate, 
 the jaw grows and the teeth are rendered further apart. If the 
 teeth are not extracted soon enough, the permanent teeth 
 sometimes push out at the side. This often happens in the 
 case of the eye-tooth ; but generally the teeth are lost one 
 after another, first on the lower jaw ; the jaw expands and the 
 cavity of the mouth increases so as to make sufficient room for 
 the large permanent teeth. 
 
 The process of cutting teeth is not an unnatural one, and 
 ought not to be painful or dangerous. In the present state of 
 things, however, children often suffer severely from it, and not 
 unfrequently life is destroyed in this way. This, of course, is 
 induced by irritation and feverish excitement, which is con- 
 nected with the brain by means of the nerves of the teeth; the 
 same amount of pain might be sustained by the patient without 
 injury, if related to the foot or hand and farther away from the 
 brain. 
 
 The bad habit of feeding children cake, sugar and candy, 
 
INSALIVATION. 
 
 25 
 
 Fig. 8.— Tartar on Foul Teeth Tartar Removed 
 
 is often the cause which tends to produce much trouble relative 
 to the teeth, especially early decay, which is at present so com- 
 mon. Our artificial modes of living greatly destroy the natural 
 order of development in children, hence it is supposed that the 
 trouble with the teeth is the result of ages of wrong courses of 
 living. The death of one half of all the children that are born 
 before they come to maturity is a sad commentary on the crea- 
 tive wisdom that established the natural laws and punishes the 
 bad habits and usages of civilized society. Nature is per- 
 fect. God the Creator is all-wise and beneficent. If we were 
 but wise enough and good enough to obey the laws of o*ur 
 being, this great mortality of children, this falling off of human 
 fruit before it is ripe, would be done away with. Mr. Catlin 
 asserts that nearly all the infants among the Indians, unless 
 they died of accident, came to maturity. Though he saw as 
 many as four thousand Indian skulls in a depository of the 
 dead, there was not an infant's skull among them. The death 
 of infants and children was so rare, that the oldest inhabitants 
 had to study to recall the death of children, except of accident. 
 But our children inherit, with the abuses of civilization, bad 
 conditions of the teeth generally from parents who have lived 
 in an abnormal way ; hence the great trouble with cutting the 
 teeth, and with their early decay after they are cut. 
 
 A full set of false teeth, in the upper jaw at least, is very com- 
 mon among women of twenty-five and among men of thirty- 
 five in our own country to-day. Occasionally we find one of 
 the old stock who retains a healthy and vigorous set of teeth 
 until he is seventy years old. without a speck of decay, with 
 the ranks all full. This law of temperance and health, 0? 
 
26 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 sound constitution and sound teeth with long life, pertains to 
 •he animal kingdom as well as to men. 
 
 The cow's jaw, (Fig. 6,) shows every tooth in its place and 
 jrder, with a fine enamel, adapted to do the work for which 
 they are designed ; and when these teeth are used in the natu- 
 ral way they are healthy, and we may safely conclude the ani- 
 mal is throughout in like healthy condition. But when we 
 turn to the under jaw of the cow that has been fed on warm 
 still-slops and kept housed up — even as women and children 
 often are- — secluded from wholesome air, we find the teeth de- 
 cayed and the bone of the jaw unhealthy, and we have a right 
 to infer that the whole animal is in a similar unhealthy condi- 
 tion. 
 
 The illustrations of tartar which we present, show a very 
 common neglect in taking care of the teeth, and though the 
 teeth themselves may not be decayed, the bony socket which 
 contains them decays, and sometimes the teeth, lacking sup- 
 port, fall out and are lost. 
 
 One of the best evidences of good culture and proper care of 
 one's self, is a tidy mouth and nicely kept teeth. Every reader 
 knows some person who, when he laughs, presents teeth that are 
 covered with tartar, or blackened by smoking, and whose 
 mouth is a disgust to every beholder. Such people should go 
 to a mirror, where they can take a view of their open sepulchre, 
 full of dead or unclean bones. 
 
 fhe lowest forms of animal life have the simplest digestive 
 fct *aratus, and subsist on such kinds of food as require little 
 elaboration. The very lowest animals that we can trace seem 
 to be all stomach, all the processes of digestion being performed 
 In a single canal or cavity. No animal ever manifests two 
 v fgans or structures, or parts, without one of them being ana- 
 logous to a stomach. The monera, the lowest form of animal 
 life yet recognized, has, apparently, no organs, parts nor struc- 
 tures. When it needs food it projects an instrument and takes 
 it into its substance. Yet it has a digestive apparatus, or it 
 would not live, develop, grow, nor divide into parts, nor differ- 
 
INSALIVATION. 
 
 27 
 
 ential into organs. The digestive organs of fishes and reptiles 
 are comparatively simple. Birds macerate the grains and seeds 
 in their crops, and then masticate them in the stomach. The 
 gizzard, a tough muscular substance, lined with an exceedingly 
 dense membrane, capable of grinding stones, metals, and even 
 glass to impalpable powder, performs the office of teeth. 
 
 In the carnivorous quadrupeds the stomach is much smaller 
 and the alimentary canal much shorter than in the herbivorous, 
 while the omnivora have an intermediate size of stomach and 
 length of intestines. The lower jaw of the carnivora has 
 only the up-and-down, or cutting motion, while the teeth are 
 adapted to tearing the flesh on which they subsist, as seen in 
 the cut, Fig. 9. 
 
 Fig. 9. 
 
 In the omni- 
 vora, of which 
 the hog is un- 
 fortunately our 
 most familiar 
 example, the 
 back teeth have 
 a close resem- 
 blance to those 
 
 JAWS AND TEETH OF A PANTHER. 
 
 of herbivorous animals, while the front teeth exactly re- 
 semble the tearing and dagger-like teeth of the carnivora, as 
 represented in the cut, Fig. 10. 
 
 Fig. 10. 
 
 UNDER JAW AND TEETH OF THE HOG. 
 
28 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 The masticating organs of the camel, which subsists on the 
 coarsest herbage, show a much stronger resemblance to those 
 of carnivorous animals than do those of the human being ; and 
 hence, if we are to judge the natural dietetic character of man 
 from the standpoint of comparative anatomy alone, we must 
 place him at a farther remove from flesh-eaters than is the 
 camel. It can hardly fail to be noticed by the attentive reader 
 that the irregular arrangement of the teeth peculiarly fit the 
 animal for munching and breaking up the branches, sprouts, 
 stalks, etc. , which constitute a large proportion of its food. 
 
 Fig. ii. 
 
 JAW AND TEETH OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 The articulation of the lower jaw also admits of the lateral, 
 rotary, and grinding motions, as with all grass-eating, grain- 
 eating, and fruit-eating animals. 
 
 Fig. 12. 
 
 In the jaw of the horse, Fig. 12, the in- 
 cisors, or cutting-teeth, are placed in front, 
 to enable it conveniently to crop the grass 
 and other herbage ; and the grinding-teeth, 
 for mashing and comminuting the food> 
 occupy the back part. There is no trace 
 whatever of tearing, or carnivorous teeth. 
 
 In the orang-outang, Fig. 13, which is 
 a purely frugivorous animal, the articula- 
 tion of the jaws admits of the grinding 
 motion. In some of the monkey tribes, the baboon for 
 example, the cuspids do resemble the corresponding teeth of 
 the carnivora ; they are not, however, used for flesh-eating, but 
 
 SKULL OF THE HORSE. 
 
INSALIVATION. 
 
 2 9 
 
 seem to be an arrangement which serves them for weapons of 
 offence or defence. 
 
 The distinctions of the human teeth are seen in the illustra- 
 tion, Fig. 14. The incisors (I) are intended for biting and 
 cutting the fruits, nuts, grains, or whatever may be his proper 
 food ; the cuspid or corner-tooth (C), sometimes called canine 
 
 Fig. 13. 
 
 JAWS AND TEETH OF AN ORANG-OUTANG 
 
 from its resemblance to the corresponding tooth of the dog, 
 -enables him to grasp more firmly and retain more securely the 
 alimentary substance ; and the bicuspids (B) and molares (G) 
 -which are the small and large grinders, are fitted to mash and 
 comminute all solid kinds of food. 
 
 The following communication to the Science of Health, by 
 Mrs. Fannie R. Fendye of Baltimore, Md., may fittingly con- 
 clude this branch of our subject, premising, however, that it is 
 not 1 ' betel-eating " but better mastication and fewer unhygi- 
 
30 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 Fig. 14. 
 
 HUMAN JAW AND TEETH. 
 
 cnic habits which make the contrast between Oriental and Oc- 
 cidental teeth so unfavorable to us — realizing the dream ol 
 Giles Corey, who was pressed to death for the crime of witchcraft 
 in ' ' Salem Town " some two hundred years ago : 
 
 " I saw a man pull all his teeth — 
 It took him but a minute ; 
 He oped his mouth and put them back — 
 I thought ye deuce was in it." 
 
 THE TEETH AMONG DIFFERENT NATIONS. 
 
 " In all the cities of south-eastern Asia I found not a single 
 dentist, with the solitary exception of one in Calcutta. And 
 even he, I think, has since retired for want of employment, 
 and gone home in disgust — resolved, henceforth, to live among 
 people sufficiently 1 civilized ' to destroy their own teeth and 
 wear artificial ones instead. This paucity of supply must indi- 
 cate a want of demand ; as it is unquestionably true that the 
 ranks of the dental profession are ever increasing — the colleges 
 of our own country alone sending out regularly graduates 
 enough, it is said, to supply the world. In India there are 
 merchants, lawyers, clergymen, physicians, druggists, soldiers, 
 sailors, teachers, and mechanics, both native and foreign. 
 Only dentists are lacking, and the reason is because they are 
 not needed. 
 
 ' ' Everybody has fine teeth in the East. I have seen both 
 men and women, at ninety, with perfect teeth, and seldom ono 
 
INSALIVATION. 
 
 31 
 
 under fifty who had lost a single incisor or cuspid, and perhaps 
 not even a molar. 
 
 " Two European gentlemen, aged respectively twenty-six and 
 thirty, were one day conversing with a young Siamese noble, 
 who remarked that he could never guess the age of foreigners, 
 as they looked so different from natives. The younger of the 
 two then said, 'What do you imagine my age to be?' 
 ' About nineteen or twenty, I suppose, ' was the reply. 
 'But really, I think you look even younger/ 'Well, but 
 see here, ' said the foreigner ; 1 1 have lost a tooth, ' pointing 
 far back in his mouth to the place from which one of his ' wis- 
 dom-teeth ' had recently been extracted. ' Have you, 
 indeed?' asked the noble, manifesting great concern — 'then 
 you must be eighty or ninety. I did not think you were so 
 old.' 
 
 "The late kingofSiam, who died at the age of sixty-five, had 
 a set of teeth that our proudest belle would have gloried in — 
 except the color, for he always had them painted black — the 
 Siamese, in common with most oriental nations, deeming 
 white teeth a vulgarity. Paint for the teeth is in the East as in- 
 dispensable an article of the toilet, as powder and rouge for 
 that of a French woman. Even young ladies with pearly teeth 
 so exquisitely beautiful that it would seem sacrilege to mar 
 their gleaming whiteness, will, as soon as they become of age, 
 — that is, ten years old, after which they are considered marriage- 
 able — commence staining the teeth, first red, and afterwards 
 jet black, and so they are worn through life. But this is by no 
 means to avoid the trouble of keeping the teeth in neat condi- 
 tion ; for, as a general rule, orientals take far more care of the 
 teeth than do most western nations. 
 
 "Toothache is, I think, utterly unknown in the East, except 
 among white foreigners, as I do not remember to have found 
 a single case among the natives. Certainly there must be some 
 cause for this marked exemption from diseases of the teeth. It 
 may be due, in part, to the constant use of the betel or artca-nut, 
 which all classes and both sexes, in nearly every part of India, 
 chew all day long. They combine with the betel, chunam, 
 
32 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 pepper-leaves, and fine-cut tobacco — little trays containing these 
 various ingredients of the popular quid, standing about in 
 every apartment, ready to be offered to honored or welcome guests, 
 the moment they are seated. Not to offer it, is deemed a lack 
 of hospitality, or an intimation that the visitor is not received 
 as an equal or friend. Eating betel is in Southern and Eastern 
 Asia, just what eating salt is in Western Asiatic countries — a 
 token and bond of perpetual friendship, that not even a rogue 
 or a murderer would violate. Those who have once partaken 
 together of the ' betel quid, ' are thenceforth sworn friends, till 
 death sunders the compact. The arica is highly astringent, like 
 the nut-gall ; and from this quality may tend, in some mea- 
 sure, to the preservation of the teeth. Another cause is, 
 probably, found in the extremely regular habits of all classes 
 in regard to meals, with which nothing is allowed to interfere. 
 When dinner-time comes, an oriental dines > whether he is at 
 leisure or not ; and he would do so, I think, if a beleaguering 
 foe were thundering at his gates. But between meals they never 
 eat. Such habits in regard to eating, cannot fail to be pro- 
 motive of the general health, and, of course, the teeth share the 
 benefit. A still more potent cause is, I think, the fact that 
 orientals never take either food or drink, very hot or very cold. 
 Ice is unknown in most parts of the East, and none but for- 
 eigners, or those who have learned it from them, make any 
 attempt to find a substitute for ice, by artificial cooling pro- 
 cesses. Tea and fruit juices are the beverages most in favor ; 
 the former taken without cream or sugar, and only moderately 
 warm ; while the latter are used just as they are expressed from 
 the fresh, ripe fruit. How absolutely opposite to the habits of 
 nearly every American, at home or abroad ! It is said by those 
 who have taken pains to inform themselves on the subject, that 
 there is no country in the world, civilized or savage, where bad 
 teeth are so generally the rule, and good ones so rare an excep- 
 tion, as the United States. And there is probably no other 
 nation who so generally swallow tea and coffee hot enough to 
 scald the throat, and then 'cool off' by an immediate draught 
 of iced-water. An Englishman would regard such a habit as 
 
THE TEETH. 
 
 33 
 
 absolutely suicidal, and he is amazed that sensible Americans so 
 recklessly jeopardize health and life. At English hotels i people 
 can, of course, have whatever they demand and pay for, as at 
 public houses elsewhere ; but in private families in England, 
 even the wealthy, the use of ice is only moderate and occasional 
 — not by any means the constant, every-day, excessive affair it 
 is with us ; and there it is never taken immediately after hot drinks, 
 as at breakfast and supper among Americans. Neither do 
 English people eat irregularly, and at all hours between meals, 
 as do many of our countrymen — a practice by which the diges- 
 tive organs must become impaired and the general health 
 suffer, even if the teeth did not. 
 
 " Another deleterious practice, common in our large cities 
 especially, is the excessive use of ice-cream and soda-water. 
 Nothing is more common on summer evenings, than for young 
 people to swallow, at their boarding-houses, a cup or two of 
 coffee boiling hot, and as rapidly as if they were drinking for a 
 wager, and then to rush out for an ice-cream or glass of soda, 
 "to cool off with" — the "fruit syrups" of the soda water often 
 containing ' ' fusil oil " and other poisons, apart from the delete- 
 rious effects on the teeth of these extremes of heat and cold 
 following each other in quick succession. A distinguished 
 dentist told me recently, that it was difficult to conceive of any- 
 thing wore absolutely destructive to the teeth than the simultaneous 
 use of cold and hot drinks. And he added that he had known 
 scores of Europeans, who came to the United States with teeth, 
 that, with the habits of living to which they had been accus- 
 tomed at home, would probably have lasted to extreme old 
 age — glad, in less than five years after they came amongst us, 
 to avail themselves of the services of a dentist to manufacture an 
 artificial 'set/ 
 
 ' ' Surely something may be done, to avert this wide-spread 
 curse of toothache and discolored, uncomely teeth, or the only 
 alternative that remains of wearing those not ' to the manor 
 born so that Americans of future generations, at least, may 
 cease to enjoy the enviable distinction of belonging to a 
 toothless nation. " 
 
34 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 5 
 
 DEGLUTITION. 
 
 7 5. The Tubercle behind the Incisor Teeth. 
 
 1 7 2. The Soft Palate. 
 
 3. The Velum Pendulum Palati. 
 
 4. The Ridges seen on the Roof of the Mouth. 
 
 6. The Middle Line of the Hard Palate. 
 
 7. Orifices of some of the Mucous Follicles. 
 
 8. The Tonsil. 
 
 9. The Pharynx. 
 
 Fig. 15.— A View of the Roof of the Mouth and of 
 the Soft Palate. ' 
 
 1. The Roof of the Mouth, bounded by the Superior 
 Dental Arch. 
 
 After the food has been properly masticated, it is to be swal- 
 lowed. The next process, therefore, is deglutition. And it is 
 worth a moment's delay to consider the ample, if not wonderful 
 contrivances for effecting the passage of the food from the 
 mouth to the stomach, without the artificial aid of drink. 
 
 On each side of the mouth, at the commencement of the 
 Pharynx (back part of the mouth), is a glandular organ, termed 
 Tonsil, whose office is to furnish a lubricating fluid. This is 
 shown in the cut, Fig. 15, 8. In addition to these glands, 
 the whole mucous surface exhales a moistening and lubricating 
 fluid, more refined than any oleaginous matter ever produced 
 by artificial means, that used in sewing machines not excepted. 
 This secretion is formed in tubes, called Mucous Follicles, the 
 orifices of some of which are shown at 7. Persons who use 
 very hot drinks, and irritating condiments, or strong alkalies, 
 \ sometimes have a thickening of the mucous membrane of the 
 oesophagus, which renders deglutition difficult. 
 
 II 
 
CHYMIFICATION. 
 
 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CHYMIEICATIOBT. 
 
 The second stage of digestion, in the processes of the trans- 
 formation of the food elements into living structure, is termed 
 chymification. This is performed in the stomach. The older 
 physiologists regarded digestion in the stomach as analogous to 
 fermentation ; modern authors are very discordant in their 
 opinions of the nature of the process, some regarding it as 
 mainly mechanical, and others as purely chemical. The sim- 
 ple truth is, it is a vital process, as are all other processes per- 
 taining to living organisms. 
 
 In the stomach the food is mingled with a solvent, called the 
 gastric juice, whose wonderful properties have thus far eluded all 
 chemical and microscopical investigations. It is known to be 
 slightly acid, and to have a power of transforming organic ele- 
 ments unlike that of any other known substance. It is said, 
 also, to "digest" inorganic, and even metallic substances, 
 which have been purposely or accidentally swallowed ; but this 
 opinion is certainly an error, for oxidation, or decomposition, 
 tvhich is all that can happen to them in the gastric cavity, is a 
 rery different process from digestion. 
 
 A general view of the abdominal organs is represented in Fig. 
 1 6. The adipose matter in the chest has been removed, as has 
 the Greater Omentum, which covers the viscera in front. The 
 liver also has been turned back to exhibit its under surface and 
 the Lesser Omentum, 
 
 It will be noticed that the stomach is nearly semicircular in 
 shape, concave above and toward the liver on the right side, 
 convex toward the spleen on the left side, and that its main 
 bulk is on the left of the median line. The stomach, heart, 
 and spleen are all chiefly on the left side, a provision which 
 seems necessary to counterbalance the largest glandular organ 
 of the body, the liver, which is situated on the right side. A 
 knowledge of this arrangement of the organs enables us to un- 
 derstand many of the complicated and obscure pathological 
 
36 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 Fig. 16. 
 
 i. The gread Blood-vessels. 2. The Lungs of each side. 3. The Heart. 4. The 
 Diaphragm. 5. Under surface of the Liver. 6 The Gall-Bladder. 7. Union of the 
 Cystic and Hepatic Ducts to form the Ductus Choledochus, which empties the bile into 
 the Duodenum immediately below the pit of the stomach. 8. Anterior Face of the 
 Stomach. 9 The Gastro- Hepatic, or Lesser Omentum. 10. Gastro-Colic, or Greater 
 Omentum, cut off to show the small intestines. 11. Transverse Colon, pushed a little 
 downwards. 12 Its ascending portion, also pushed down. 13. Small Intestines. 14. 
 The Sigmoid Flexure of the Colon. 15. Appendicula Vermiformis. 
 
 conditions resulting from congestion and enlargement of the 
 liver. When congested, its very weight causes a painful, drag- 
 ging sensation in the vicinity of the stomach, and when very 
 much enlarged it causes the body to bend to one side, especially 
 in young persons, often resulting in double curvature of the 
 
CHYMIFICATION. 
 
 37 
 
 spine. I have known several children who were badly incur- 
 vated, attended in some instances with partial or complete 
 paralysis of one of the lower extremities. And I have known 
 such patients treated for months with tonics, showering, elec- 
 tricity, " movements," and some worse things, without benefit, 
 and without any suspicion on the part of the attending physicians 
 of the real nature of the difficulty. In other cases its pres- 
 sure against the stomach would cause much distress in that 
 organ, especially after meals. In still other cases its upward 
 pressure against the diaphragm would cause continual diffi- 
 culty of breathing, occasioning short breath, coughing, and 
 palpitation, whenever the patient would step hurriedly, or walk 
 up-stairs, often resulting in severe asthmatic paroxysms. 
 These patients can never be cured, as the reader will readily 
 understand, until the diseased condition of the liver is pro- 
 perly attended to. 
 
 The relation of the stomach to the great blood-vessels below 
 the heart, enables us to explain many strange and often frightful 
 sensations with which all dyspeptics are more or less familiar. 
 
 The illustration, Fig. i 7, represents the stomach and oesopha- 
 gus in their natural position, and shows the proximity of the 
 stomach to the descending aorta and other large blood vessels of 
 the abdominal cavity. The thoracic viscera, nearly all of the 
 diaphragm, and the intestines, have been removed ; the peri- 
 toneum (lining membrane of the cavity of the abdomen) has 
 been detached from the kidneys, and the duodenum is left. 
 
 One of the most distressing symptoms of many dyspeptics is 
 a hard beating or throbbing behind the stomach. It is gene- 
 rally worse soon after lying down, and the throbbing is some- 
 times so violent as to jar the whole body and shake the bed- 
 stead. Many persons in this condition have apprehended 
 "organic disease of the heart," and not unfrequently their 
 physicians, unable to account for these occasional tumults of 
 the central organ of the circulation on any other hypothesis, 
 have diagnosticated 4 'heart disease." 
 
 A reference to the illustration will make the matter plain 
 enough. All dyspeptics have one of four conditions, and 
 
33 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 Fig. 17. ~ 
 Stomach and Great Blood-vessbls. 
 
 1. Upper portion of the (Esophagus. 
 
 2. Arch of the Aorta. 
 
 3. Lower portion of the CEsophagus. 
 
 4. Vertebral Column. 
 
 5. Vena Cava Ascendens. 
 
 6. Pancreas. 
 
 7. The cut edge of the Diaphragm. 
 
 8. Great Cul-de-Sac of the Stomach. 
 
 9. Cardiac orifice of the Stomach. 
 
 10. Pyloric orifice of the Stomach. 
 
 11. Spleen. 
 
 12. The Peritoneal Coat of the Stomach 
 partially turned off. 
 
 13. Right Kidney. 
 
 14. Lower curvature of the Duodenum. 
 
 15. Ascending Vena Cava. 
 
 16. Abdominal Aorta. 
 
 17. A section of the lower bowel (Rectum). 
 
 many all of them. 1. Consti- 
 pation. 2. Enlargement of the 
 liver. 3. A contracted and rigid 
 state of the abdominal mus- 
 cles. 4. Congestion of the ad- 
 jacent organs — lungs, spleen, 
 Sidneys and pancreas. Either condition causes obstruction to 
 the free passage of the current of blood down the descending 
 aorta, and when all co-operate, the effect is extreme. The swol- 
 len organs and unyielding muscles press the stomach directly 
 against the large blood-vessel, so that every contraction of the 
 1 left ventricle of the heart propels a column of blood through 
 the arteries on which the stomach presses, not only causing the 
 jarring or throbbing sensation, but actually lifting the lower 
 side of the stomach to some extent. The effect is exactly 
 analogous to that of moderate blows or rappings against the 
 under side of the stomach. If the region around the stomach 
 is contracted, as is the case with many " confirmed dyspeptics/' 
 or "caved in," as is the case with all women who have laced 
 tightly in early life, this pounding symptom is greatly aggravated. 
 In such cases the patient, on retiring to rest and assuming the 
 
C H YMIFIC ATION. 
 
 39 
 
 horizontal position, will often experience noises in the ears like 
 the "sound of many waters/' or the rushing of a cataract. 
 This symptom is also always worse soon after taking a full meal , 
 and if such a person take a "hearty supper," and retire 
 immediately to bed, his sensations will be more forcible than 
 agreeable ; and his unquiet slumbers will alternate with parox- 
 ysms of incubus, preceded by frightful spectres, fantastic situa- 
 tions, impossible adventures, and all the goblins of air, earth, 
 and sea. 
 
 Fig. 18.— Front View of the Stomach. 
 
 i. Anterior Face of the (Esophagus. 2. The Cul-de-Sac, or greater Extremity. 
 3. The lesser or Pyloric Extremity. 4. The Duodenum. 5. A portion of the Peritoneal 
 Coat, turned back. 6. A portion of the Longitudinal Fibres of the Muscular Coat. 7. 
 The Circular Fibres of the Muscular Coat. 8. Oblique Muscular Fibres. 9. Portion of 
 the Muscular Coat of the Duodenum, shown by removing the Peritoneal Coat. 
 
 The process of chymification means simply the formation of 
 the food material into a homogenous, pulpy mass. For this 
 purpose it is mixed with the gastric juice and compressed and 
 kneaded by the muscles which constitute the middle coat of 
 the stomach. The fibres of this muscular coat are so arranged 
 as to do their work admirably, as is shown in the illustration, 
 Fig. 18, which represents a front view of the stomach, distended 
 with air, the peritoneal coat being turned back. 
 
 It will readily be seen that this arrangement of longitudinal, 
 circular and oblique muscular fibres allows the stomach to 
 
40 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 compress and knead the ingesta in all possible directions, as 
 the varied motions of the tongue enable it to move the food in 
 the mouth, during mastication, in every direction. 
 
 The active principle, or solvent, of the gastric juice, is evi- 
 dently corpuscular, as is, probably, that of all organic secretions. 
 A something analogous to this has been obtained from the 
 analysis of the gastric juice, and termed pepine ; but pepine 
 in the living organism, just as nature produces it, and pepine 
 out of the living organism, as the chemist prepares it, are very 
 different materials, although the latter does produce a solvent 
 effect on alimentary substances. But the idea of introducing 
 pepine into the materia medica as a substitute for the gastric 
 juice, or as a remedy for indigestion, is as absurd as would be 
 the notion of preparing our food in such a manner as not to 
 require mastication. Indeed, this latter practice is very general, 
 for, do not learned physicians tell us, and eminent physiologists 
 explain to us, that bread, for example, when made light by 
 fermentation, can be more readily permeated by the saliva and 
 gastric juice ? Surely they forget, when treating of dietetics, the 
 nature of the physiological function termed mastication. 
 
 The pepine which is employed as a "digester" in medicine, 
 is usually obtained from the stomachs of pigs, by scraping the 
 mucous membrane with a blunt instrument. In order to pro- 
 duce it in large quantities the animals are kept without food 
 until their appetites become keen, and then placed where they 
 can smell the food without getting hold of it. The smell of 
 the savory viands provokes a flow of gastric juice, or of some- 
 thing analogous, which is then obtained pure, as is supposed, 
 by killing the animal. But, as all organic secretions are modi- 
 fied by and partake of the dietetic character of the animal, it 
 seems to me that the omnivorous swine, always filthy and 
 scrofulous in its domesticated condition, is the worst possible 
 source from which to obtain pepine for the human stomach. 
 The peptic corpuscles of a scrofulous pig may infect the human 
 being with malignant disease, as readily as the vaccine virus 
 from a diseased animal produces the worst forms of confluent 
 small-pox. 
 
CHYMIFICATION. 
 
 41 
 
 The corpuscles of the gastric juice are very tenacious of life, 
 as are all similar secretions. In rennet, the dried stomach of 
 the calf, they may retain their organic properties for years. 
 One of the peculiar properties of gastric juice, is that of coagu- 
 lating milk. Dr. Fordyce long ago ascertained that six grains 
 of the mucous coat of the stomach, infused in water, will pro- 
 duce a liquid that will coagulate one hundred ounces of milk, 
 or 6,857 times its bulk. 
 
 It has been ascertained that a single drop of gastric juice con- 
 tains not less than half a million of corpuscles, and that the 
 quantity necessary for the proper digestion of a single meal 
 may be reckoned in figures at not less than 130,000,000,000 ; 
 a number that need not surprise us when we recollect that 
 modern scientists have estimated the constituent molecules of 
 a drop of water at several billions. 
 
 In a prize essay on Cheese-making, by S. R. Arnold, of 
 Lansing, Michigan, published in 1870, the author claims that, 
 in the ordinary process of cheese-making, the corpuscles, or 
 cells, obtained from rennet, are not destroyed in the cheese, 
 but are transferred to the stomachs of those who eat the cheese, 
 and may there assist digestion ! 
 
 But this is pushing nature quite out of the universe. If 
 cheese, or anything else that contains gastric corpuscles, is 
 necessary or useful in the digestive processes of the human sto- 
 mach, how are those human beings going to digest their vic- 
 tuals who have not cheese or something similar ? And how are 
 the animals that never use any pepine except the home-made 
 article, to get along ? Old cheese is well known to be one of 
 the most indigestible articles that was ever swallowed in the 
 name of food ; occasioning constipation of the bowels, canker 
 in the mouth, dryness of the mucous surfaces, and deficiency 
 in both the gastric and salivary secretions. Says the old dis- 
 tich : 
 
 " Cheese is a surly elf, 
 Digesting all things but itself." 
 
 Perhaps Mr. Arnold derived his philosophy from this couplet 
 of the muse. But it is not truth, whatever may be said of the 
 
42 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 poetry. It is an unnatural and very unwholesome food ; in* 
 deed, it is not food at all in the proper sense of the word, 
 though containing certain alimentary proximate principles in 
 an altered and degenerated form. B3cause cheese is a dry 
 food, that is, contains little water, some English medical writers, 
 in view of the scarcity and high prices of flesh-food, consequent 
 on the " rinderpest, " "pleuro-pneumonia," and "rot," among 
 so many of the cattle and sheep brought to the London mar- 
 ket, have recommended cheese as a substitute. They will find 
 a much better article of diet in that king of the cereals, wheat, 
 provided they know how to cook it hygienically, or in any one 
 of twenty grains, fruits, and roots that could be named. 
 
 Another peculiar property of the gastric 
 secretion has been called antiseptic. This 
 term is not strictly correct, for antiseptic ap- 
 plies properly only to dead matter. It is true, 
 however, that partially decayed vegetables and 
 semi-putrescent flesh, lose all offensive odor 
 soon after coming in contact with the gastric 
 juice. But this effect results from the trans- 
 forming power of the solvent, by which the 
 molecular atoms are re-arranged and the fetid 
 gases decomposed and dissipated. All that 
 an antiseptic can do is to prevent decay by 
 rendering the organic elements fixed and un~ 
 changeable, as with salt, vinegar, alcohol, 
 arsenic, etc. This is why all salted aliments 
 are more indigestible and less nutritious than 
 those which are fresh. 
 
 In Fig. 20, the entrance to the secreting 
 follicles are shown, in the cells upon the 
 surface of the mucous membrane of tta 
 stomach. 
 
 The mucous membrane is so completely 
 studded with glands for the secretion of the gastric juice that 
 its surface has a velvety or napped appearance, as represented 
 in Fig. 19, which is a section of the coals of the stomach near 
 
 FIG. 19. 
 
 Gastric Glands. 
 
 fig. 20. 
 Secreting Tubes. 
 
CHYLIFICATION. 
 
 43 
 
 the pylorus, showing the gastric glands magnified twenty dia- 
 meters. 
 
 The immediate consequences of a deficient supply of gastric 
 juice — a condition that exists with all dyspeptics — are, acidity, 
 flatulence, eructations, water-brash, heart-burn, etc. 
 
 After the food has been duly prepared in the stomach in 
 the manner we have seen, it is passed through the pylorus 
 (lower orifice of the stomach) into the duodenum, the first 
 portion of the small intestines. The pyloric portion of the 
 stomach and the upper portion of the duodenum are liable 
 to become ulcerated, indurated, tuberculated, and even can- 
 cerous in persons who have much abused their digestive or- 
 gans with strong condiments, indigestible aliments, alcoholic 
 liquors, or other poisons. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 CHYLIFICATI02ST. 
 
 In the duodenum the food, now chyme, is mingled with the 
 secretion from the mucous membrane of the intestine itself, the 
 bile, and the pancreatic juice. Physiologists do not yet agree 
 as to the precise offices performed in the organic economy by 
 the liver or pancreas. The bile is certainly, in part, and prob- 
 ably wholly, an excrementitious fluid, or excretion, although 
 being of an alkaline nature, it may incidentally mingle with 
 the fatty matters of the food, and by converting them into a 
 saponaceous mass, assist in their passage or absorption. All 
 physicians are familiar with the various phases of disease which 
 result from a deficient excretory action of the liver. Jaundice, 
 rashes, humors, erysipelatous affections, dimness of vision, 
 impaired hearing, and a multitude of cutaneous eruptions are 
 attributable to "biliousness/' 
 
 The following extract from the author's work, "The Hy- 
 dropathic Encyclopcedia," may be pertinent in this place : 
 
 "The liver forms the bile from the venous blood. The ob' 
 ject of the biliary excretion evidently is to eliminate certain inv 
 
44 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 purities from the body in the form of compounds of carbon, 
 hydrogen and nitrogen, and also ' to deterge the blood of a 
 portion of any excess of alkali that may be absorbed by the ve- 
 nous extremities. 
 
 * ' Liebig has fabricated a" singularly inconsistent hypothesis, 
 which has satisfied himself and all others who are satisfied to 
 echo his arguments without taking the trouble to examine 
 them, that the bile is a nutritive product, and that, conse- 
 quently, whatever will tend to the formation of bile, or any of 
 the proximate elements usually found in bile, is a useful and 
 nutritive substance. Liebig reasons in this wise : The bile is 
 composed of several certain proximate elements. One of these 
 is called taurine. This taurine is the only compound or prox- 
 imate element found in the bile which contains nitrogen. Now 
 theine and caffeine, the active principles of tea and coffee, are 
 found, on chemical analysis, also to contain a very small quan- 
 tity of nitrogen ; ergo, tea and coffee, though injurious excit- 
 ants to the nerves, may be useful to the liver by furnishing 
 the nitrogenous element of the taurine of the bile. Such rea- 
 soning is extremely absurd, and the error is a most palpable 
 one. It consists in mistaking a waste material for an aliment ; 
 a depurating process for a nutritive one. As well might one 
 mistake putrid flesh for wholesome food, because it contains 
 carburetted hydrogen, which is also found in the foeces, or ex- 
 crementitious matters of the bowels." 
 
 The pancreatic juice, mingling with the oily matters of the 
 food, or with the food (and it should be stated here that oily 
 matters are never digested nor changed in the stomach), redu- 
 ces them to the condition of an emulsion, which means, 
 dividing the oily particles so minutely that they lose their 
 apparent individuality. In this emulsified condition the fat is 
 capable of being absorbed and carried into the general circu- 
 lation, and, finally, expelled through the various emunctories, 
 or deposited in the cells of the areolar tissue. 
 
 The spleen, when enlarged and indurated, is what is known 
 in popular parlance as ' ' ague cake. " It is common in malarious 
 districts after the intermittent fever has been " broken up" by 
 
INTESTINAL DIGESTION. 
 
 45 
 
 large doses of quinine or arsenic. When dyspepsia is compli- 
 cated with this condition, the patient is always despondent and 
 melancholy, unless the organic or vital temperament exists, 
 with a very large development of the phrenological organ of 
 hopefulness. 
 
 The relation of the pancreas to the spleen on the left side, 
 and the duodenum on the right, is shown in Fig. 21. The 
 cut represents the organs as viewed anteriorily, with their 
 blood-vessels injected. 
 
 Fig. 21. — Pancreas, Spleen, and Duodenum. 
 
 The spleen. 2. Its Diaphragmatic Extremity. 3. Its Inferior Portion. 4. The 
 Assure for its Vessels. 5. The Pancreas. 6. Its Head, or the Lesser Pancreas. 7. 
 duodenum. 8. Coronary Arteries of the Stomach. 9. The Hepatic Artery. 10. The 
 Splenic Artery. 11. The Splenic Vein. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INTESTINAL DIGESTION". 
 
 From the commencement of the small intestines to the ter- 
 mination of the large ones, the mucous lining of the canal 
 secretes a fluid which not only smooths the passage of matters 
 along its surface, but aids in the elaboration of the nutrient 
 elements. In different portions of the alimentary tract there 
 are special glands, follicles, or other secreting structures, aiding 
 in the complex process of converting " pabulum " into living 
 structures. The small intestines are divided by anatomists into 
 the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum, and the large intestines into 
 the cecum colon and rectum, A glance at some of the more 
 
46 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 prominent of these special appendages to the digestive apparatus 
 will not only show how ' ' fearfully and wonderfully " we are 
 made, but may induce us to have a little more compassion on 
 our own bowels, if we cannot have ' ' bowels of compassion " 
 
 for others ; for it is in the 
 long and tortuous tract of 
 the intestinal canal that 
 the most aggravated mise- 
 ries of a dyspeptic life are 
 experienced. Choleras, 
 colics, diarrhoeas, worms, 
 hemorrhoids, various con- 
 cretions, and, worst of all, 
 constipation, have their 
 seat in the intestinal tube, 
 in addition to inflamma- 
 tory affections and struc- 
 tural derangements, which 
 are common to all parts 
 of the system. 
 
 In Fig. 22, is seen a 
 section of the ileum, in- 
 verted, so as to show the 
 appearance and arrange- 
 Fig. 22.— Section of the Ilium. ment of the villi C!\ an ex- 
 tended surface, as well as the follicles of Lieberkuhn. The 
 follicles are represented by the great number of black points 
 between the villi, or proiections, and can only be recognized 
 by a close inspection. 
 
 A section of the small intestine containing some of Peyer's 
 glands, as shown under the microscope, is represented in Fig. 
 23. They secrete a milky fluid with numerous corpuscles of 
 various sizes, but not so large as those of the blood. The 
 meshes seen in the folds are the ordinary tripe-like folds of the 
 mucous coat. 
 
 Several late pathologists have advanced the theory that an 
 inflammation of Payer's glands in '.he jejunum and ileum, is the 
 
INTESTINAL DIGESTION. 
 
 47 
 
 essential cause of typhoid, or enteric fever, while an inflamma- 
 tion of Brunner's glands, in the duodenum, is the essential 
 cause of typhus or putrid fever. But these theorists have mis- 
 taken effect for cause. In 
 some instances these glands 
 were found inflamed or dis- 
 organized after death. In 
 other cases no such appear- 
 ances were discoverable. 
 If inflammation of these 
 glands was the cause of 
 these fevers, post-mortem 
 examinations should have 
 confirmed it in all cases. 
 
 The entire number of 
 follicles in the whole ali- 
 mentary canal has been 
 reckoned by Dr. Horner 
 ( ' ' Special Anatomy and 
 Histology, ") at " forty-six 
 million nine hundred thou- 
 sand and upwards. " They 
 constitute the minute ana- 
 tomy of the mucous coat, 
 and their most prominent 
 phases are represented in 
 the four following illustra- 
 tions : 
 
 Fig. 24, is a view of the 
 follicles of the colon, mag- 
 nified one hundred and fif- 
 teen times. Their aggre- Fig. 24 .-Follicles of the Colon. 
 
 gate number is estimated at nearly ten millions. 
 
 Fig. 25, is a view of the folds and follicles of the stomach, 
 highly magnified. About two hundred and twenty-five are found 
 on every square of an eighth of an inch, which would give a 
 little more than a million and a quarter for the entire stomach. 
 
43 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 In Fig. 26, are seen the follicles and villi of the jejunum 
 highly magnified. As the villi are erected by the injection, 
 
 they run into each other 
 and press one upon an- 
 other like the convolu- 
 tions of the cerebrum. 
 
 The follicles and also 
 the villi of the ileum, 
 highly magnified, are 
 represented in Fig. 27. 
 These villi are curved, 
 with their edges bent 
 in, on concave. There 
 is, however, in the whole 
 alimentary canal, al- 
 most every conceivable 
 form and shape. 
 
 It is in the large 
 intestines, where fecal 
 matters are liable to 
 accumulate, that the 
 most distressing effects 
 of indigestion are man- 
 ifested. Admirable as 
 are their structural ar- 
 rangements and irregu- 
 larly curviform direc- 
 tion for the performance 
 
 Fig. 26.— Follicles of the Jejunum. of their functions Under 
 
 normal conditions, these very circumstances render them liable 
 to become the seat of terrible sufferings when obstructed or 
 diseased. This fact may be inferred from a glance at the 
 illustration, Fig. 28, which is a view of the position and curva- 
 tures of the large intestines. 
 
 The large intestines differ from the small in being saccu- 
 lated, an arrangement which favors the retention of the nu- 
 trient material which has not yet been taken up by the 
 
INTESTINAL DIGESTION. 
 
 49 
 
 Fig. 
 
 27. — Follicles of the Ileum. 
 
 ried 
 
 extremities of the veins and the lacteals, until it can be com- 
 pletely absorbed, and also facilitates the excretion of fecal 
 
 matters from the blood. 
 But if constipation ex- 
 ist, these sacculations 
 become loaded with 
 hardened fceces, and 
 sometimes with other 
 concretions, rendering 
 the patient as miserabk 
 as can well be ima- 
 gined. 
 
 It will be noticeo 
 that the contents of the 
 large intestines are ear- 
 in a circuitous route, and 
 in one place directly upward 
 for ten or twelve inches ; thence 
 across the abdominal cavity to 
 the right side, thence down- 
 ward on the left side to a posi* 
 tion below the ileo-coecal junc- 
 tion ; thence through the sig 
 moid flexure (a curvature re 
 sembling the letter S), and, 
 
 1. The end of the Ileum. 
 
 2. Appendicula Vermiformis. 
 
 3. The Ccecum, or Caput Coli. 
 
 4. The Transverse Colon. 
 
 5. The Descending Colon. 
 
 6. The Sigmoid Flexure. 
 
 7. Commencement of Rectum. 
 
 8. The Rectum. 
 
 9. The Anus.— The Levator-Ani Muscle 
 Fig. 28. — The Large Intestines. is shown on each side. 
 
 finally, downward again in a straight line to the outlet. 
 
 The careless observer might see, in this extraordinary con*- 
 trivance, nothing but a useless complication that renders the 
 whole organism ever liable to manifold infirmities and prema- 
 ture destruction. But a similar mistake has been made with 
 
t 
 
 50 DIGESTION. 
 
 regard to the convolutions of the brain. There is neither sim- 
 plicity nor symmetry on the encephalic surface, and its irre- 
 gular elevations and depressions seem, to the non-philosophical 
 mind, but a promiscuous and useless massing together of brain 
 substance. But the physiologist, and especially the phreno- 
 logist, sees the matter with very different eyes. He perceives 
 the use, and then recognizes the beauty of the whole arrange- 
 ment. He has learned that all of this unevenness of surface 
 unfolds and spreads out, so to speak, the mental organs, and 
 correspondingly augments their power. 
 
 The last of the small intestines (ileum) opens into a large 
 sac or pouch, which is the portion of the large intestine termed 
 coecum. This is very large in some of the herbivorous animals. 
 In the horse it is larger than the stomach. The careful student 
 may inquire, for what purpose is the little tortuous worm-like 
 appendage depending from the lower part of the ccecum ? Well, 
 it has no physiological use whatever, and yet, paradoxical as it 
 may seem, " nothing is made in vain." Like the little tri- 
 jointed bone at the lower extremity of the vertebral column, it 
 seems to point a moral. It is the relic of a lower organization, 
 and is the strongest argument, perhaps, that can be adduced 
 in favor of the doctrine of "Evolution." In some of the 
 lower animals, which subsist on coarse food and herbage, the 
 beaver, for example, the appendicula vermiformis constitutes 
 another pouch or stomach, or a prolonged ccecum. As the 
 food becomes more frugivorous and concentrated in the ascend- 
 ing scale, the appendage is not needed, and perishes by non- 
 use. If the human race exists long enough, and continues to 
 develope in its cerebro-spinal tissue, the unseemly excrescence 
 will entirely disappear. But I do not wish to be understood 
 as interpreting * ' Darwinism " so as to make man the 
 ' ' descendant " of the lower organizations. My opinion is that, 
 in the order of progressive development he has ascended above 
 the whole animal kingdom. 
 
 A view of the whole range of the alimentary canal is presented 
 in Fig. 29. A portion of the oesophagus has been removed on 
 
INTESTINAL DIGESTION. 
 
 51 
 
 The arrows indicate 
 
 account of want of space in the figure, 
 the course traversed by the ingesta. 
 
 Fig. 29. 
 Alimentary Canal in situ. 
 1. The Upper Lip, turned off at 
 the mouth. 2. Its Frcenum. 3. 
 Lower Lip, turned down. 4. Its 
 Froenum. 5, 5. Inside of the cheeks, 
 covered by the lining membrane of 
 the mouth. 6, Points to the opening 
 of Steno's Duct. 7. Roof of the 
 mouth. 8. Lateral Half Arches. 9 
 Points to the Tonsil. 10. Velum 
 Pendulum Palati. 11. Surface of the 
 Tongue. 12. Pappillae near its point. 
 13. A portion of the Trachea. 14. 
 CEsophagus. 15. Its Internal Sur- 
 face. 16. Inside of the Stomach. 
 17. Its Greater Extremity or great 
 Cul-de-Sac. 18. Its Lesser Extrem- 
 ity or smaller Cul-de-Sac. 19 Its 
 Lesser curvature. 20. Its greater 
 curvature. 21. Cardiac Orifice. 
 22. Pyloric Orifice. 23. Upper por- 
 tion of Duodenum. 24,25. Remain- 
 der of the Duodenum. 26. Its Val- 
 vulae conniventes. 27. Gall Blad- 
 der. 28. Cystic Duct. 29. Divi- 
 sion of Hepatic Ducts in the Liver. 
 30. Hepatic Duct. 31. Ductus 
 Communis Choledochus. 32. Its 
 opening into the Duodenum. 33. 
 Pancreatic Duct. 34. Its opening 
 to the Duodenum. 35. Upper part 39 
 of the jejunum. 36. Ileum. 37. 
 Some of the Valvulae Conniventes. 
 
 38. Lower extremity of the Ileum. 
 
 39. Ileo Colic Valve. 40, 41. Cce- 
 cum. 42. Appendicular Vermifor- 
 mis. 43, 44. Ascending Colom 45 
 Transverse Colon. 46, 47. Descend- 
 ing Colon. 48. Sigmoid Flexure of 
 the Colon. 49. Upper portion of the 
 Rectum. 50. Its lower extremity. 
 51. Portion of the Levator Ani Muscle. 52. Anus. 
 
 With the anatomical data before us, it is not difficult to 
 understand why, in cases of prolonged constipation, or in tor- 
 pid and feeble states of the alimentary canal and abdominal 
 muscles, the ccecal pouch should be the portion of the canal 
 
52 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 most liable to obstructions and accumulations. Many persons 
 of good constitutions, not conscious of any very bad habits, 
 who live "as other folks do," and attend to their daily busi- 
 ness, suffer continually of fcecal collections in the ccecum, and, 
 generally, to some extent in the colon also, especially in that 
 portion of it denominated the sigmoid flexure, without the 
 least suspicion of the real cause of their difficulties. And 
 physicians of extensive practice and long experience not unfre- 
 quently dose such patients for years with aperients, cordials, 
 stimulants, tonics, alteratives, nervines, and opiates, and some- 
 times with mercurials in addition, with no thought of the nature 
 of the troublesome symptoms. I have known several cases in 
 which the lower extremities were so feeble and the back so 
 weak, from no other cause than the one we are considering, 
 that the patients could not walk without a cane in each hand. 
 
 The ordinary symptoms are, a sense of weight or heaviness 
 in one or both iliac regions, with occasional dull pains, alter- 
 nating more or less frequently with aching or griping sensations. 
 Sometimes the sensation in the part will be of a dragging or 
 bearing-down character, in extreme cases amounting to a most 
 intolerable tormina and tenesmus as in dysentery. All of these 
 symptoms may be mild or severe according to the amount of 
 excrementitious material present and the efforts made to dis- 
 lodge it. Diarrhoea may also be present without removing the 
 constipation, for the fcecal matters are often so hardened and 
 impacted that fluid dejections pass by them without solving or 
 moving them. 
 
 Literary and sedentary persons are much more liable to 
 obstructions of the ccecum and colon than are laboring persons. 
 Clergymen, lawyers and legislators, who devote much time to 
 writing or studying, and do not give proper attention to diet 
 and exercise, are often extreme sufferers. Were it proper and 
 useful to do so, I could give the names of distinguished bishops, 
 divines, statesmen, lawyers, and even physicians, who have been 
 dragged down from positions of honor and wealth, to moral 
 degradation and poverty, because of this condition of their bow- 
 els, and the medical treatment 
 
INTESTINAL DIGESTION. 
 
 53 
 
 I say medical treatment advisedly. The condition itself 
 might have occasioned disease and even death. But it would 
 not alone occasion dishonor. Opiates were given to relieve 
 pain, and stimulants to ' ' support vitality. " Their effects were 
 only temporary, and as the cause was not removed they were 
 frequently repeated. Soon morphine and brandy became 
 necessities ; and eventually drunkenness became a habit, fol- 
 lowed in some instances by debauchery and other vices. Some 
 of the readers of these lines may remember the sad story of two 
 distinguished prelates, men of good name and fame and unim- 
 peachable piety, occupying the exalted positions of Bishops of 
 the two greatest States of our Union — New York and Pennsyl- 
 vania. They were brothers. Both were degraded from their 
 high and holy office for intoxication and lecherous conduct. 
 The unfortunate men were more sinned against than sinning. 
 It was shown on their trial that the medicine which had worked 
 their ruin had been prescribed by their physicians. 
 
 But, to say nothing of the various entozoa which are frequently 
 found in different parts of the alimentary canal, all of which 
 are scavengers, and could not exist were it not for the morbid 
 secretions and improper ingesta, there is another group of ex- 
 ceedingly distressing affections whose seat is the rectum. I mean 
 hemorrhoids, or piles. Chronic inflammation of the mucous 
 surface is among the effects of prolonged constipation, and this 
 may extend from the mucous membrane of the coecum and 
 colon to that of the rectum, or foecal accumulations may occur 
 in the rectum. The result is, the numerous veins in the lower 
 y part of this portion of the intestinal tube, very near its outlet, 
 become distended into tumors, rupture and bleed, or the 
 mucous membrane itself becomes disorganized, and portions 
 of it are hardened with excrescences and tumors of various 
 forms, sizes, and degrees of consistence. In these cases defe- 
 cation is always painful, and the pain is sometimes excruciating. 
 When these tumors are large or numerous, or the whole 
 mucous membrane greatly relaxed, the tender and perhaps 
 bleeding bowel will prolapse after each defecation, in many 
 instances only to be replaced with difficulty and suffering. In 
 
54 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 extreme cases these tumors are removed by surgery— ligation 01 
 caustic 
 
 Fig. 30. — Muscles of the Trunk, in Front. 
 In Fig. 30 are seen the muscles of the trunk anteriorily. The superficial layer Is seen 
 on the left side, and the deeper on the right. 1. Pectoralis major. 2. Deltoid. 3. Ante-^ 
 rior border of the latissimus dorsi. 4. Serrations of the serratus magnus. 5. Subclavius 
 of the right side. 6. Pectoralis minor. 7. Coracho-brachialis. 8. Upper part of the 
 biceps, showing its two heads. 9. Coracoid process of the scapula. 10. Serratus magnus 
 of the right side. 11. External intercostal. 12. External oblique. 13, Its aponeurosis ; 
 the median line to the right of this number is the linea alba ; the flexuous line to the left 
 is the linea semilunaris ; the transverse lines above and below the number are the lineae 
 transversae. 14. Poupart's ligament. 15. External abdominal ring ; the margin above 
 is called the superior or internal pillar ; the margin below the inferior or external 
 p'llar ; the curved intercolumnar fibres are seen proceeding upward from Poupart's liga- 
 ment to strengthen the ring. The numbers 14 and 15 are situated upon the fascia lata 01 
 the thigh ; the opening to the right of 15 is called saphenous. 16. Rectus of the right 
 side. 27. Pyramidalis. 18. Internal oblique. 19. The common tendon of the internal 
 oblique and transversalis descending behind Poupart's ligament to the pectineal line. 
 20. The arch formed between the lower curved border of the internal oblique and Poiy 
 part's ligament, beneath which the spermatic cord passes, and hernia occurs. 
 
INTESTINAL DIGESTION. 
 
 55 
 
 But the student who would master the complex physiology 
 of digestion, should not overlook one important auxiliary which 
 is scarcely alluded to in medical books, and not mentioned at 
 all, so far as I know, by the standard authors on Theory and 
 Practice, in connection with the therapeutics of indigestion. 
 I mean the abdominal muscles. There is a good reason why 
 the abdominal viscera, and especially the alimentary canal should 
 not be enclosed within bony walls, as is the case with the brain 
 and the organs of the thorax. The walls of the abdomen are 
 formed of muscular and tendinous bands, which are thin, flexi- 
 ble, and exceedingly strong. This structure provides for a 
 great degree of mobility in the va- 
 rious movements of the body, and 
 aids powerfully in the peristaltic 
 action of the bowels. In the act 
 of defecation these muscles, co- 
 operating with the action of the 
 muscular coat of the intestinal 
 canal, compress the whole abdo- 
 men firmly yet steadily, so that 
 the contents of the bowels are 
 moved along and expelled easily 
 and without pain. But when 
 these muscles are inactive, from 
 rigidity or relaxation, the whole 
 effect is thrown upon the delicate 
 fibres of the muscular coat of the 
 intestines, resulting in imperfect 
 or incomplete defecation, and, 
 eventually, torpor and exhaustion 
 of the peristaltic action. 
 
 Fig. 31. — Muscles of the Trunk, laterally. 
 Fig. 31 is a side view of the muscles of the trunk. 1. Costal region of the latissimus 
 dorsi. 2. Serratus magnus. 3. Upper part of external oblique. 4. Two external inter- 
 costals. 5. Two internal intercostals. 6. Transversalis. 7. Its posterior aponeurosis. 
 8. Its anterior. 9. Lower part of the left rectus. 10. Right rectus. 11. The arched 
 opening where the spermatic cord passes and hernia takes place. 12. The gluteus maxi- 
 mus, and medius, and tensor vaginae femoris muscles invested by fascia lata, 
 
56 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 Many ' ' wonderful cures " have been effected, of dyspeptics 
 who had been dosed and drugged for years unavailingly, by 
 simply exercising the abdominal muscles, by methods which will 
 be explained hereafter. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 ABSORPTION OF THE NUTRIENT ELEMENTS. 
 
 The nutritive elements o. the food are taken from the ali- 
 mentary canal by the extremities of the veins, and by the lac- 
 teal vessels, which originate in the small intestines. The 
 process of absorption commences in the stomach and extends 
 nearly or quite the entire length of the intestines. The venous 
 absorbents convey their contents directly to the mass of blood, 
 while the lacteal transport the matters which they take up 
 through the mesenteric glands to the receptaculum chili, whence 
 they are emptied into the blood near the heart. 
 
 In the stomach the more watery portions of the aliment, and 
 such elements as require little elaboration, are taken up by the 
 extremities of the veins. When milk is taken the watery part 
 is absorbed and the solid portions reduced to a coagulum, or 
 curd, before gastric digestion can take place. The lacteal 
 absorbents convey the more dense and oleagenous elements, 
 termed chyle, which is usually of a milky white color; but 
 this depends much on the quality of the ingesta, being nearly 
 transparent in those who use little or no fatty matters in or with 
 their food. 
 
 A provision for the farther elaboration of the chyle is found 
 in the mesenteric glands, which are convolutions of the absorb- 
 ent vessels numerously distributed along their course. 
 
 Fig. 32 is a view of the beautiful arrangement of these chyle- 
 carriers. They are represented as injected. The arteries of 
 the jejunum and mesentery are also injected. 
 
ABSORPTION OF THE NUTRIENT ELEMENTS. 
 
 57 
 
 Fig. 32. — Lymphatics of Jejunum and Mesentery. 
 
 1. Section of the Jejunum. 
 
 2. Section of the Mesentery. 
 
 3. Branch of the superior 
 Mesenteric artery. 4. 
 Branch of the superior Me- 
 senteric Vein. 5. Mesente- 
 ric Glands receiving the 
 Lymphatics of the intestines. 
 
 The structure and 
 arrangement of the 
 mesenteric glands 
 are better shown in 
 Fig. 33, which is a 
 view of the lympha- 
 tics as they appeared after death of abdominal dropsy. 
 
 1. Thoracic Duct. 2. Sec- 
 tion of the Aorta. 3. Glands 
 around the Aorta which receive 
 the Lymphatics from the intes- 
 tine and give off vessels to the 
 Thoracic Duct. 4. Superficial 
 Lymphatics on the intestine. 
 5, 5. More Lymphatic glands 
 receiving vessels from the in- 
 testine. 6, 7. Lymphatics from 
 the intestine and mesentery. 
 
 All of the muscles 1 
 of the abdomen are 
 auxiliary to respiration 
 as well as to digestion. 
 Indeed they constitute 
 the chief forces in the 
 act of expiration ; and 
 without they are main- 
 tained in a vigorous condition by appropriate exercise, neither 
 breathing nor digestion can be well performed. In the act of 
 vomiting the spasmodic contraction of these muscles is the main 
 force that ejects the contents of the stomach, and in the various 
 forms of cholera and diarrhoea, it is mainly the same force, ab- 
 normally exerted, that causes the evacuations. Hence it becomes 
 as necessary to regulate the action of these muscles in fluxes 
 knd profluvia, as to invigorate them in cases of dyspepsia. 
 
 Fig- 33- — Mesenteric Glands. 
 
53 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 The course and termination of the Thoracic Duct, and its 
 relations, are represented in Fig. 34. 
 
 Fig. 34.— Thoracic Duct. 
 1. Arch of the Aorta. 2. Thoracic Aorta. 3 
 Abdominal Aorta. 4. Arteria Innominata. 5, Left 
 ( Carotid Artery. 6. Left Sub-Clavian Vein. 7. 
 Superior Vena Cava. 8. The two Veins termed 
 Venae Innominatae. 9. Internal Jugular and Sub- 
 Clavian Vein at each side. 10. Vena Azygos. 11. 
 Termination of the Vena Hemi- Azygos in the Vena 
 Azygos. 12. Receptaculum Chyli ; several Lympha- 
 tic Trunks are seen opening into it. 13. The Thora- 
 cic Duct, dividing opposite the Middle Dorsal Verte- 
 bra in two branches, which soon re-unite ; the course 
 of the Duct behind the Arch of Aort2 and Left Sub- 
 Clavian Artery is shown by a dotted line. 14. The 
 Duct making its turn at the Root of the Neck and 
 receiving several Lymphatic Trunks previous to ter- 
 minating in the Posterior Angle of the Junction of the 
 Internal Jugular and Sub-Clavian Veins. 15 Ter- 
 mination of the Trunk of the Lymphatics of the 
 Upper Extremity. 
 
 What precise changes the chyle un- 
 dergoes in passing through the mesen- 
 teric glands is not known, but as all 
 glands are secreting, excreting, or 
 elaborating organs, it is certain that 
 the influence they exert on the nutri- 
 tive fluid is important; hence it is 
 essential to perfect digestion that these 
 minute and complicated structures are 
 not deranged nor impaired. And just 
 here is another consideration of no small importance. It is 
 said by some medical authors, that when mercurial and other 
 mineral drugs come in contact with the mesenteric glands, they 
 4 'take on" inflammation. The phrase is absurd, but the 
 meaning intended to be conveyed is, the medicine or poison 
 (as it is administered with therapeutic or homicidal intent), 
 occasions inflammation of the glands ; and the rationale is, the 
 vital structures, recognizing the presence of an enemy within 
 the vital domain, resist or oppose it by determining the blood 
 to the part. The inflammatory process, however, although it 
 
ABSORPTION OF THE NUTRIENT ELEMENTS. 59 
 
 retards, does not prevent the passage of the drug ; for, as it is 
 necessary for the chylous fluid to be passed along, the mineral 
 particles which, in the form of oxides, chlorides, or salts, are 
 exceedingly minute, pass along with it. The glands may be 
 permanently diseased in this matter, and this method of getting 
 drug-medicines into the blood is always more or less damaging 
 to these delicate structures, and is the origin of most of the 
 tumors which are seated in the mesentery, and which are be- 
 yond the reach of medication or surgery. In some cases hun- 
 dreds, and in other cases thousands of these glands are involved 
 in the formation of an indurated irregular tumor and sometimes 
 occupying a large portion of the abdominal cavity. If invalids 
 must have their blood and tissues pervaded with the agencies 
 of the drug shop, the safer way is to administer them hypoder- 
 mically. By injecting them into the skin they will pass directly 
 into the blood, and thus save the wear and tear of the digestive 
 organs. When repeated doses of potent drugs are sent into the 
 circulation through the long and devious route of the digestive 
 apparatus, the effect is not unlike that of the march of an 
 invading army through an enemy's country. If the aggressive 
 forces put on their best possible behavior, they are enemies still, 
 and more or less desolation will mark their track. And in view 
 of the fact that we have, in the United States, thirty thousand 
 drug shops, and seventy-five thousand physicians, furnishing 
 the supplies and prescribing the doses, it may be a fair question 
 for a debating lyceum, whether there is more dyspepsia pro- 
 duced by drug medication than by all other causes combined ? 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 AERATION OF THE EOOD ELEMENTS. 
 
 But the processes of digestion are not completed until the 
 nutrient material reaches the lungs. In the respiratory organs, 
 it receives its finishing elaboration, which fits it for assimilation. 
 And here is another consideration for dyspeptics which is set 
 
6o 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 dom sufficiently regarded, if, indeed, it is ever thought of. 
 
 No food can be assimilated unless properly aerated. Each particle 
 of food must come in contact with a particle of atmospheric air, 
 or it can never be used — else it is worse than useless. For this 
 purpose it is diffused through the lungs with the blood which 
 is there decarbonized. All of the venous and lacteal absorbents, 
 as we have seen, convey the nutrient matters which they take 
 up from the stomach and small intestines to the right side of 
 the heart, as do all the venous extremities and lymphatics which 
 originate in the large intestines. From the right side of the 
 heart it is conveyed, with the venous blood from all parts of the 
 system, to the lungs. 
 
 The function of aeration is not fully understood. It is well 
 known that in respiration the blood is purified of its effete car- 
 bon, and that oxygen is received into the system. But it is 
 not known that oxygen performs any other office than to com- 
 bine with and reduce to ashes, and thus favor the expulsion of 
 the disintegrated or dead matters. Oxygen is usually termed 
 " vital air," but I suppose the vitalizing element is something 
 very different. 
 
 So far as we can trace the effects of oxygen, they are purely 
 destructive. Of course it is just as important to get rid of the 
 offal, to remove the effete matters from the system, as it is to 
 supply wholesome food. And for this purpose a full supply 
 of oxygen is a vital condition. But this does not make it in any 
 sense " vital air," any more than nitrogen is vital air, for a due 
 admixture of this gas with the oxygen is just as essential to 
 health as is the presence of the oxygen. 
 
 Pure oxygen is as non-respirable as is nitrogen, carbonic 
 acid gas, or hydrogen ; although a larger proportion of it in the 
 atmosphere than nature provides may be borne for a time with- 
 out serious inconvenience. Those empyrics, however, who 
 run the business of treating diseases with "Compound Oxygen,,, 
 "Super-Oxygenated Air," "Vitogen," and other humbugs, 
 must either be arrant ignoramuses, or have great faith in human 
 credulity. These enterprising gentlemen might as well under- 
 take to invent better kinds of food, or a superior quality of 
 
AERATION OF THE FOOD ELEMENTS. 
 
 6l 
 
 water than nature has been enabled to accomplish, by chang- 
 ing the proportions of their constituent elements, as to imagine 
 they can improve the atmosphere nature has provided for us 
 to breathe. 
 
 In my opinion the vitalizing principle which may pervade 
 any organic structure, and which is especially received in respi- 
 ration, is an element inconceivably more refined than oxygen 
 or its nascent condition, ozone, and more etherealized than 
 even the all-pervading electricity or magnetism, and which fills 
 all that part of the unmeasurable universe which is called space. 
 But, for all practical purposes it is enough to know that perfect 
 respiration is essential to perfect nutrition, and that every influ- 
 ence which diminishes the breathing capacity, correspondingly 
 impairs digestion and conduces to dyspepsia. 
 
 All impurities of the atmosphere tend to enfeeble the respira- 
 tory, and indirectly, the nutritive functions, as do all habits of 
 dress or positions of body which impede the action of the respi- 
 ration. And here I must allude to two prevalent causes of dys- 
 pepsia, consumption, and general physical deterioration, which 
 are not only destroying the young men and young women of 
 our land at a fearful rate, but are alarmingly on the increase 
 all over the country. 
 
 I cannot do better justice to this branch of our subject 
 than by quoting a few paragraphs from one of my works on 
 ■ Tobacco-Using," recently published at the office of the Health 
 Reformer, at Battle Creek, Michigan : 
 
 ' 1 THE BREATH OF LIFE. 
 
 "There is one view of the physical evils of tobacco-using 
 which has never been presented distinctly by writers on this 
 subject. I mean the effect of the habit of respiration. Tobacco- 
 using directly and fearfully lessens the breathing capacity. This is 
 one reason why tobacco-users require more sleep than others, 
 other circumstances being equal.* Now, the available life- 
 
 * The less the nervous energies are exhausted by nervines, stimulants, or narcotics of 
 any kind, or, indeed, by pernicious habits of any sort, the less will be the amount of sleep 
 required for recuperation. 
 
62 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 force of every living being is precisely in the ratio of the devel- 
 opment of the respiratory organs. Tobacco-using, so long as 
 it is continued, constantly diminishes the breathing apparatus. 
 This is easily explained. Any one, on going, on a hot sum- 
 mer's day, from the stifling stenches of an uncleaned city, to the 
 purer breezes of the open country, may have a realizing sense 
 of the principle involved. His lungs will expand spontane- 
 ously. They seem to open full and deep to take in as much 
 vital air as possible. It is a luxury to breathe. But in the 
 dirty city, the accumulated impurities of the atmosphere are 
 resisted by the pulmonary structures. The glottis partially 
 closes to keep them out, and all of the respiratory muscles 
 contract spasmodically to prevent their entrance. Breathing 
 is, therefore, imperfect. And when the atmosphere is very 
 impure, breathing is not only imperfect but painful ; and in 
 extreme cases it is entirely suspended. 
 
 ' ' Now, nothing is more offensive to the vital instincts of the 
 respiratory organs than the odor and fumes of tobacco. Talk 
 about stenches, miasms, contagions, infections, from gutters, 
 cess-pools, markets, stables, distilleries, tenement houses, offal 
 gatherings, &c. ! All of them combined (let me gently hint to 
 the Board of Health) do not equal tobacco in intrinsic repul- 
 siveness, nor in their injurious effects on the lungs. 
 
 ' 1 Let any one, uncontaminated by its use, enter a close room 
 where several persons are smoking, or a crowd in the street 
 where fashionable young men most do congregate, and, in a 
 moment, he will find himself breathing short and laboriously. 
 He will experience a sense of suffocation, and perhaps feel an 
 inclination to sneeze, retch, or vomit. His lungs expand with , 
 difficulty. They do not kindly receive the particles of the 
 deadly narcotic. Inhalation is feeble and imperfect, while ex- 
 piration is more forcible and complete. And thus the lungs 
 are exercised in just the manner gradually and surely to contract 
 the diameter of the chest and permanently diminish the respi- 
 ratory capacity. And as our whole population is more or less 
 exposed to an atmosphere strongly impregnated with tobacco 
 effluvia, the vital function of respiration cannot fail to suffer a 
 
AERATION OF THE FOOD ELEMENTS. 
 
 63 
 
 continual deterioration. And all that is necessary to insure the 
 ruin of the human race at no distant day is the increase of the 
 habit of tobacco-using as rapidly as it has increased for three 
 centuries past, or as rapidly as it is increasing at the present 
 time. Frightful examples of this possible result may be seen 
 in droves in all of our cities and large villages. 
 
 4 4 Look at the swarms of young men — young in years, but old 
 in vital conditions — who commenced this horrid practice in 
 early life ; and thousands do commence it even before the age 
 of puberty. The close observer will not fail to notice in a ma- 
 jority of them, something unshapely and unhuman — 4he sharp 
 features, angular faces, projecting shoulders, lank limbs, nar- 
 row chests, gaunt abdomens, sallow, bilious skin, and old-man- 
 ish appearance generally. To the eye of the intelligent phy- 
 siologist these young men — mere boys in the order of nature — 
 are prematurely old, already in a decline. I have seen thou- 
 sands of tobacco-using young men (of twenty to twenty-five 
 years of age, according to the almanac) who were physiologi- 
 cally and for all practical purposes, older than thousands of 
 their fathers and grandfathers were at fifty to sixty years of age. 
 A large proportion of tobacco-using young men are dwarfed in 
 body and mind irrecoverably ; and should they unfortunately 
 become husbands and fathers, their wives may well be pitied, 
 while their offspring will in most cases be constitutionally frail 
 and precociously dissolute, and many of them imbecile, if not 
 idiotic. 
 
 " Many of these young men have the characteristics of disso- 
 luteness and sensuality stamped indelibly on the physiognomy 
 as well as the physiology. And with many of them — indeed 
 all, to a greater or less extent — their secretions are all morbid, 
 their excretions defective ; their whole mass of blood foul, their 
 breath fetid, their sweat nauseous, and their whole persons 
 offensive. 
 
 " young men the chief smokers. 
 
 "As we trace the history of tobacco-using from one genera- 
 tion to another, it is all downward — from bad to worse. The 
 
64 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 fathers of many of the tobacco-using young men of the present 
 day did not commence the habit until they had acquired a fair 
 vital development. But they transmitted morbid propensities 
 to their children, who commenced much earlier in life. Hence 
 there is frequently a striking contrast between the compara- 
 tively stalwart tobacco-using father, and the puny, fragile, 
 stunted, and inferior tobacco-using son. It is not difficult to 
 imagine what their sons must be. 
 
 "It is worthy of remark that, as a general rule, persons who 
 become addicted to tobacco-using (and the same is true of 
 liquor-drinking) in early life, indulge more excessively than 
 do those who commence in middle or mature life. Being 
 excitable, the consequent depression is greater ; hence the 
 seeming necessity for more frequent repetitions. 
 
 " A few days since, I noticed an illustration of this statement, 
 which will, I think, be found of extensive application. I was 
 travelling from Philadelphia to New York. The car in which I 
 was seated contained just forty persons. Eight of them were 
 young men ; twenty-two would pass for middle-aged, and ten 
 were old persons — six men and four women. All of the young 
 men (and this was not the " smoking car, forward") smoked 
 cigars or huge meerschaums more than half of the whole dis- 
 tance ; only two of the middle-aged men smoked at all, and 
 then cigars only on one occasion for a few minutes ; while but 
 one of the old gentlemen befouled himself and the rest of us by 
 smoking at all. I have made similar observations on all the 
 leading railroads of the United States, and I am of the opinion 
 that if any person, travelling in any part of the country by rail, 
 steamer, ferry, or stage, will study this subject closely, he will 
 find that the principal smoking is done by the young men. 
 Tens of thousands of young men may be seen every Sunday 
 standing around the corner groceries, and the thousands of 
 tobacco shops (which find Sunday their principal business day 
 of the week), smoking their lives away, and bestenching the 
 atmosphere which others are obliged to breathe. And in every 
 public gathering outside of a church, it may be readily noticed 
 
TOBACCO-USING. 
 
 65 
 
 that the principal smoking is performed by the young men and 
 boys. 
 
 i ' Tobacco-using, in young persons, has the same effect in 
 diminishing the breathing capacity that tight-lacing (which is 
 alarmingly on the increase again) has. Some years ago, when 
 the practice of tight-lacing, which has ruined many thousands 
 of young ladies, induced the friends of humanity and of the 
 future generations, to make special efforts to arrest the evil, 
 many young men adopted the maxim, 'natural waists or nc* 
 wives/ It is a pity the maxim was not more generally lived up 
 to. But these young ladies might very well reciprocate the 
 compliment while they accepted the philosophy in adopting the 
 adage, ' natural mouths or no husbands. ' Examples are, in- 
 deed, sadly frequent on the thoroughfares of our great cities, of 
 young ladies who have destroyed more than one-half of their 
 breathing capacity by this disgraceful habit of tight-lacing. 
 They cannot possibly live to be old ; they can never become 
 mothers of healthy children ; and while they do live they must 
 be infirm and miserable in themselves, and a source of anxiety 
 and sorrow to their friends. They are invalids for life. Their 
 wan, expressionless faces, harsh, pinched, contracted features, 
 with livid, bilious discolorations of the skin, proclaim in lan- 
 guage that the physiologist cannot mistake, deficient respiration 
 and imperfect depuration. And the counterpart of these 
 appearances and indications may be seen in numerous young 
 men who promenade the streets behind lighted cigars. 
 
 4 'But although the physiological result is the same in the 
 cases of tobacco-using young men and tight-lacing young 
 women, there is a considerable difference anatomically. In 
 the case of the young ladies the obstruction to respiration is 
 external and mechanical, hence there is greater deformity, or 
 ' caving in/ of the vital organs, while, with the young men, 
 there is less malformation or deformity of the chest. 
 
 "Let a tobacco-using young man and a tight-lacing young 
 woman marry, and what must be the character of the off- 
 spring ? We can see melancholy specimens enough on every 
 hand. 
 
66 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 1 ' Now the only method which has ever proved effectual for 
 preventing or curing consumption is, to keep the lungs ex- 
 panded as much as possible. And for this purpose, breathing 
 tubes, spirometers, blow-guns, lifting machines, and other 
 gymnastic contrivances, have been found useful. 
 
 A LEARNED DISCUSSION ON TOBACCO. 
 
 f< I cannot better illustrate the delusion that may exist in 
 high places, even among the learned, on the subject of tobacco- 
 using, than by the relation of the following incident : In 1862, 
 I attended the annual meeting of the British Scientific Associa- 
 tion, in Cambridge, England. In the section on Physiology, 
 a paper was read on the evil effects of tobacco-using. The 
 author stated very clearly the various morbid conditions and 
 diseases which are well known to result from the habit, and 
 quoted a respectable array of medical authorities who declared 
 it to be extremely pernicious. The discussion that followed 
 the reading of the paper was amusing, if not instructive. Every 
 one who spoke on the subject (and they were all medical gen- 
 tlemen), condemned, not the tobacco, but the author of the 
 essay! ' He was not a competent judge/ 'His opinions 
 were of no authority/ ' He was no physiologist,' etc. All 
 who spoke, advocated the use of tobacco — moderately, of 
 course. One gentleman said that, ' next to alcohol, tobacco 
 was the best-abused article in existence. ' Another stated that 
 he had used the ' weed ' for twenty-three years without being 
 harmed by it. A third regarded it 'favorable to mentality,' a 
 fourth considered its employment in moderation ' decidedly 
 hygienic. ' A fifth said, ' I always find my ideas to flow more 
 consecutively after a few whiffs from a good cigar ;' and a sixth 
 justified its use by reference to the Turks, ' who used tobacco 
 freely, yet were a strong and courageous race. ' No one replied 
 a word to the facts, or pretended to meet the arguments pre- 
 sented in the paper ; but all who spoke, contented themselves 
 with the utterances of opinions in praise of tobacco, and de- 
 nunciations of the author. Surely, if an association of scienti- 
 fic men whose members claim to be as learned a body as exists 
 
TIGHT-LACING. 
 
 67 
 
 on the earth, can gravely utter such arrant fallacies, we need 
 not wonder at the wide-spread ignorance of the non-professional 
 people on this subject. 
 
 The importance of the subject of tight-lacing, and abnormal 
 positions when habitually assumed, as affecting respiration and 
 digestion, cannot, perhaps, be better stated and illustrated than 
 in the following chapter on ' ' Popular Physiology," a serial 
 work now being published in the ' ' Science of Health. " The 
 illustrations are from a work by the author, entitled, "The 
 Illustrated Family Gymnasium." 
 
 BODILY POSITIONS. 
 
 ' 1 A single glance at the situation of the various organs of 
 the body, with respect to each other and to the bony skeleton, 
 shows the importance of maintaining, under all circumstances, 
 the normal position. Erectitude is one of the most obvious 
 laws of the vital machinery, yet almost every one is crooked. 
 'Blessed are the upright/ physically as well as morally. 
 
 "Each structure and organ is provided with all the room 
 necessary for its functional purposes, but no more. Nature is 
 a rigid economist. She never wastes. She provides the ma- 
 chinery of life, and the conditions for its normal operation. 
 Obey the law and live, disobey and die — these are her irrepeal- 
 able mandates. The vital organs have definite relations to 
 everything in the universe. Observe and conform to these 
 relations and be well ; disregard them and suffer. Such is the 
 stern teaching of Nature's volume, but it is also benevolent. 
 If laws can be disregarded with impunity, they are practically 
 annulled, and exist in vain. Nature commits no error in the 
 enactment of law, and provides no remedies for their infraction. 
 Suffering is inevitable so long as we act in disobedience to the 
 laws inherent in the vital organism. Unless this were so we 
 could never learn to obey the laws. Experience may be a dear 
 school. The penalties for transgression may be terrible. But 
 neither is too costly or severe until it teaches us the greatest 
 practical truth that the human mind is capable of comprehend- 
 
68 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 ing — that all good is in the line of obedience to organic law, 
 and all evil in opposition thereto. 
 
 " 'Cease to do evil and learn to do well ' in all things, is the 
 divine philosophy, and applicable to every department of 
 human life. In few things are human beings more prone to 
 do evil and more regardless of all health considerations than in 
 respect to bodily positions. 
 
 'Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined. ' 
 
 " A great majority of children in our primary schools become 
 more or less abnormally inclined in manhood, because they are 
 bent out of shape in childhood by unhygienic seats and 
 benches. 
 
 "In the cut ^Fig. 35 ; are seen the situation and relations 
 of the principal internal organs of the body. 
 
 " The important lesson deducible from the illustration before 
 us is, that in all of our exercises, active or passive, we should 
 maintain the normal positions of the organs. In lying, sitting, 
 standing, walking, running, working or playing, use the joints, 
 and never bend or compress any other organ, part or struc- 
 ture. 
 
 "It is evident that, if the body is habitually bent so as to 
 approximate the heart, A, and stomach, D, or if the chest is 
 restricted by lacing, so as to lessen the diameter of the chest in 
 the region of the diaphragm, d, every organ of the thoracic and 
 abdominal cavity is more or less compressed, and most of 
 them actually displaced. 
 
 "The horrid effects of tight-lacing (quite as ruinous to young 
 ladies as tobacco-using is to young men), or of lacing at all, 
 and of binding the clothing around the hips, instead of sus- 
 pending it from the shoulders, can never be fully realized with- 
 out a thorough education in anatomy and physiology. And if 
 the illustrations here presented should effect the needed reform 
 in fashionable dress, the resulting health and happiness to the 
 human race would be incalculable ; for the health of the 
 mothers of each generation determines, in a very large mea- 
 sure, the vital stamina of the next. 
 
TIGHT-LACING. 
 
 6 9 
 
 "It is obvious that, if the diameter of the chest, at its lower 
 and broader part, is diminished by lacing, or any other cause, 
 to the extent of one-fourth or one-half, the lungs, B, B, are 
 pressed in towards the 
 heart, A, the lower ribs 
 are drawn together and 
 press on the liver, C, and 
 spleen, E, while the ab- 
 dominal organs are press- 
 ed downward, D, on the 
 pelvic viscera. The 
 stomach, B, is compress- 
 ed in its transverse diam- 
 eter; both the stomach, 
 upper intestines and liver 
 are pressed downward on 
 the kidneys, M, M, and f 
 on the lower portions of 
 the bowels (the intestinal 
 tube is denoted by the 
 letters, yy, and k), while 
 the bowels are crowded 
 down on the uterus, t, 
 and bladder, g. Thus 
 every vital organ is either 
 functionally obstructed or 
 mechanically disordered, 
 * and disease, more or less 
 aggravated, the condition 
 of all. In post-moriem 
 
 examinations the liver has Fig. 35.— Internal Viscera. 
 
 been found deeply indented by the constant and prolonged 
 pressure of the ribs, in consequence of tight-lacing. 
 
 M The brain-organ, protected by a bony inclosure, has not yet 
 been distorted externally by the contrivances of milliners and 
 mantua-makers ; but, lacing the chest, by interrupting the cir- 
 culation of the blood, prevents its free return from the vessels 
 
70 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 of the brain, and so permanent congestion of that organ, with 
 constant liability to headache, vertigo or worse affections, be- 
 comes a ' ' second nature. And this condition is often aggra- 
 vated by heavy water-falls, chignons and other ridiculous head- 
 gear. 
 
 " The vital resources of every 
 person, and all available pow- 
 ers of mind and body, are 
 measurable by the respiration. 
 Precisely as the breathing is 
 lessened, the length of life is 
 shortened ; not only this, but 
 life is rendered correspondingly 
 useless and miserable while it 
 does exist. 
 
 "It is impossible for any 
 child, whose mother has dimin- 
 ished her breathing capacity by 
 lacing, to have a sound and 
 vigorous organization. If girls 
 will persist in ruining their 
 vital organs as they grow up to 
 womanhood, and if women 
 will continue this destructive 
 habit, the race must inevitablj 
 deteriorate. It may be assert- 
 ed, therefore, without exaggera- 
 tion, that not only the welfare 
 of the future generations, but 
 the salvation of the race de- 
 pends on the correction of this evil habit. 
 
 4 4 The pathological consequences of continued and prolonged 
 pressure on any vital structure are innutrition, congestion, 
 inflammation and ulceration, resulting in weakness, waste of 
 substance and destruction of tissue. The normal sensibility 
 of the part is also destroyed. No woman can ever forget the 
 pain she endured when she first applied the corsets ; but in 
 
 Fig 36 — Anterior View of the Tho- 
 rax in the Venus of Medicis. 
 
TIGHT-LACING. 
 
 71 
 
 time the compressed organs become torpid ; the muscles lose 
 their contractile power, and she feels dependent on the me- 
 chanical support of the corset. But the mischief is not limited 
 to local weakness and insensibility. The general strength and 
 general sensibility correspond with the breathing capacity. If 
 she has diminished her ' ' breath of life," she has just to that 
 extent destroyed all normal sensibility. She can neither feel 
 nor think normally. But 
 in place of pleasurable 
 sensations and ennobling 
 thoughts, are an indescriba- 
 ble array of aches, pains, 
 weaknesses, irritations, and 
 nameless distresses of body, 
 with dreamy vagaries, fitful 
 impulses and morbid senti- 
 mentalities of mind. 
 
 " And yet another evil is 
 to be mentioned to render 
 the catalogue complete. 
 Every particle of food must 
 be aerated in the lungs be- 
 fore it can be assimilated. 
 It follows, therefore, that no 
 one can be well nourished 
 who has not a full, free 
 and unimpeded action of the 
 lungs. 
 
 ' ' The effects of improper 
 dress on the bony skeleton, 
 and especially on the spinal 
 column, are shown in Figs. 
 36, 37. 38, and 39, which every physician knows are not over- 
 drawn. 
 
 4 'In the contracted chest, represented by Fig. 37, (by nu 
 means an uncommon case), the external measurement is re- 
 duced one half; but as the upper portions cf the lungs cann«H 
 
 Fig. 
 
 37 — The Same in a Lady Deformed 
 by Stays. 
 
72 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 be fully inflated until the lower portions are fully expanded, it 
 follows that the breathing capacity is diminished more than 
 one-half. It is wonderful how any one can endure existence 
 
 or long survive, in this de- 
 vitalized condition ; yet thou- 
 sands do, and, with careful 
 nursing, manage to bring 
 into the world several sickly 
 children. 
 
 "The spinal distortion 
 ( Fig. 39) is one of the ordi- 
 nary consequences of lacing. 
 No one who laces habitually 
 can have a straight or strong 
 back. The muscles being 
 unbalanced, become flabby 
 or contracted, unable to 
 support the trunk of the 
 body erect, and a curvature 
 — usually a double curva- 
 ture — of the spine is the 
 consequence. 
 
 "And if anything were 
 needed to aggravate the spi- 
 nal curvature, intensify the 
 compression of the internal 
 viscera, and add to the general deformity, it is found in the 
 modern contrivance of stilted gaiters These are made with 
 heels so high and narrow that locomotion is awkward and pain- 
 ful, the centre of gravity is shifted 'to parts unknown,' and the 
 head is thrown forwards and the hips projected backwards to 
 maintain perpendicularity, rendering walking and all other 
 voluntary exercises not only distressing to the person, but dis- 
 agreeable to the spectator. 
 
 ' ' To sit or stand in a crooked position, inclining the head and 
 knees forwards, overstretches the middle spinal muscles, re- 
 verses the normal curvature of the spinal column, compresses 
 
 Fig. 37.— Posterior View of the Thorax 
 
 in a> -natural state 
 
TIGHT-LACING. 
 
 73 
 
 the liver, stomach and lungs, and is in effect equivalent to lac- 
 ing the waist. Figs. 40 and 41 show the right and wrong 
 positions in standing. 
 
 " Sleeping on two or three 
 pillows, or on a bolster and 
 pillow, is a prevalent yet per- 
 nicious custom. If long con- 
 tinued the effect is surely a 
 distortion of the spine to some 
 extent. If the head is raised 
 high while sleeping, the stom- 
 ach and lungs are injuriously 
 compressed, and the upper in- 
 testines pressed downward on 
 the pelvic organs. If children , 
 are allowed to sleep habitually j 
 on high pillows, spinal curva- 
 ture and general debility will 
 be the inevitable conse- 
 quences. One pillow is 
 enough for any person, and 
 that should be only of mode- 
 rate size. Figs. 42 and 43 
 exhibit the right and wrong 
 positions in contrast. 
 
 ' 'Malpositions in sitting seem 
 to be among the increasing 
 evils of high civilization without physiological education. This 
 habit is mainly attributable to the immensely unanatomical 
 construction of chairs, benches, sofas, pews, etc. Not one 
 school-house in all the land, not excepting those in which 
 physiology is professedly taught, has a chair or a bench that a 
 child can sit upright on without a constant and consciously 
 painful effort. Nor have we ever seen, in private families or 
 public institutions, halls or churches, stages or ferry-boats, rail- 
 road cars or steamers, a single seat constructed on hygienic 
 
 Fig. 39. — Distorted Spine. 
 
"4 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 principles. Figs. 44 and 45 show the normal and abnormal 
 
 positions. 
 
 Fig 40— Standing Erect. Fig. 41. — Malposition. 
 
 Children who early acquire and continue in the habit of sit- 
 ting in normal or abnormal positions will either preserve the 
 erectitude of the spinal column as shown in Fig. 46, or become 
 crooked-backed, as seen in Fig. 47. 
 
 It is apparent that, inclining the head forwards and bending 
 the body at the middle of the back, instead of on the hip-joints, 
 necessitates a backward projection of the entire spinal column r 
 with a corresponding incurvation or pressure anteriorily ; hence 
 the whole body is distorted from the crown of the head to 
 the soles of the feet ; more than a hundred muscles are un- 
 balanced, and every organ and limb is weakened. 
 
 In all exercises, in walking, running, lifting, and in manual 
 labor, the power of the individual is always determined by the 
 
POSITION. 
 
 75 
 
 number of muscles that are brought into co-operative action. 
 But if the body be crooked, or any part of it out of the norma] 
 relation to other parts, 
 some muscles will be 
 strained by over ac- 
 tion, while others will 
 become relaxed from 
 insufficient action, 
 and all weakened — 
 just as in the crooked 
 ways of society some 
 persons are drudged 
 to death while others 
 die of indolence. 
 
 Fig. 42. —Proper Position in Bed. 
 
 If seats were pro- 
 perly constructed per- 
 sons would sit up- 
 right, for the reason 
 
 that it would be the Fig 43 —Improper Position in Bed. 
 
 most comfortable position. It would be painful to sit other, 
 wise. The chairs, benches, sofas, pews or other seats, should 
 
 Fig. 44 —Correct Sitting Position. 
 
 Fig 45 — Misposition in Sitting 
 
7 6 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 fit the small of the back, the curve of the hips and the whole 
 length of the thighs, as accurately as a well-made shoe is shaped 
 to the foot, or harness to the body of a horse. But the com- 
 
 46— Natural Spine. 47 — Distorted Spine. 
 
 mercial articles reverse this rule ; they press unduly on the 
 upper part of the thighs and the upper part of the back, and 
 afford no support whatever where it is principally needed. 
 Moreover, in addition to the defective shape, they are, on the 
 average, two inches too high, rendering it impossible for the 
 feet to rest evenly and easily on the floor. No wonder that, on 
 chairs which are a torment to one who tries to sit erect, per- 
 sons are continually leaning back against the wall, drawing 
 up their feet, placing one foot across the opposite knee, brac- 
 ing one or both feet against the chair rounds or any adjacent 
 object, and getting into all sorts of uncouth and ridiculous 
 attitu Jes. 
 
 The cut (Fig 48) represents the outline of our ideal chain 
 
POSITION. 
 
 77 
 
 7 
 
 Fig. 48. 
 The Anatomical Chair, 
 
 We place it on record for the benefit of the future generations, in 
 the hope that some ingenious mechanic or pecunious philan- 
 thropist will supply one of the great wants 
 of the age by introducing it." 
 
 As normal sensibility is intimately con- 
 nected with respiration, the depression and 
 melancholy so common to dyspeptics whose 
 chests are contracted, are readily accounted 
 for. Many of these invalids have, by tight- 
 lacing or other unhygienic habits, so 
 changed the form of the chest as to render 
 it concave in front where it should be 
 round and full, thus preventing the descent 
 of the diaphragm in inhalation and ren- 
 dering a full inflation of the lungs impos- 
 sible. 
 
 In the illustration (Fig. 49), 
 which is a side view of the chest 
 and abdomen in respiration, the 
 importance of the unimpeded mo- 
 tion of this muscular structure 
 which divides the cavities of the 
 thorax and abdomen may be re- 
 cognized at a glance. 
 
 1. Cavity of the Chest. 2 Cavity of the Ab- 
 domen. 3. Line ol direction for the diaphragm 
 when relaxed in expiration. 4 Line of direc- 
 tion when contracted in inspiration. 5, 6 Posi- 
 tion of the front walls of the Chest and Abdomen 
 in Inspiration 7, 8 Their position in expiration 
 
 The careful reader will now have 
 no difficulty in understanding why 
 it is that the women of our country 
 are so much more dyspeptic, as a 
 
 general rule, than the men, and SO Fig. 49. Action of the Diaphragm. 
 
 much more predisposed to consumption. 
 
 I>et us complete the illustration by contrasting the forms of 
 features of one who has, by tight-lacing, acquired the abnormal 
 
78 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 shape of the chest, with its necessary accompaniment of a wan, 
 dejected, and expressionless face, (Fig. 50,) and a ' 'human 
 form divine," whose breathing capacity 
 and life-resources are shown in a full 
 expanded respiratory apparatus, and a 
 correspondingly vitalized, hopeful, and 
 intelligent countenance — such as 
 sculptors and painters delight to fash- 
 ion and exhibit in marble and on can- 
 vas, and such as admiring crowds will 
 gaze upon for hours with pleasure. 
 
 Those persons who are distinguished 
 as having a "fine flow of animal spi- 
 rits, " invariably have a free play of the 
 Fig. 50— Unnatural Waist, respiratory system. The blood being 
 well purified and the food elements properly aerated, the circu- 
 lation is well maintained on the surface, and the patient is not 
 disturbed by nor sensitive to slight changes of temperature, nor 
 chilled with an easterly wind or the fog of a morning, as is 
 the case with those who do not breathe sufficiently. And 
 these half-breathing mortals are always feeling the need of 
 some artificial support, and are hence more liable to resort to 
 various stimulating viands and pungent condiments, which only 
 mitigate their sufferings temporarily, to be followed by collapse 
 and augmenting debility. 
 
 The editor of a monthly periodical, ("Hall's Journal of 
 Health/') some years ago advanced a theory on the relation ot 
 respiration to consumption as novel as it was absurd. And as 
 the author has written a book on consumption, and sells medi- 
 cines for consumption through the press, and, moreover, as his 
 journal has attained a large circulation, and is often quoted as 
 good authority by country newspapers, his ingenious views are 
 worthy of a passing refutation. 
 
 Briefly stated, the new and original theory amounts to just 
 this : 1. Consumption is tuberbulosis of the lungs. 2. Tu- 
 berculation of the lungs usually commences in the upper por- 
 tion. 3. A due expansion of the lungs prevents the formation 
 
POSITION. 
 
 79 
 
 of tubercles. Ergo, By constricting the lower portion of the 
 lungs, as by tight-lacing, the upper portions of the lungs are 
 forced to do the breathing which the lower portions are pre- 
 vented from doing, and hence tight-lacing and such other 
 machinery or habits as diminish respiration in the lower part 
 of the lungs are remedial. They are both preventive and 
 curative of consumption. 
 
 Ridiculous as this reasoning may seem to any tyro in physi- 
 ology, it has appeared so plausible to some invalids that they 
 have been misled by it. But a little deeper insight into the 
 anatomy and physiology concerned will at once dissipate the 
 delusion. The competent physiologist well understands that, 
 in the act of respiration, the lower portions of the lungs are 
 always expanded before the upper portions can be filled with 
 atmospheric air ; hence whatever tends to restrict inhalation in 
 their lower portions must inevitably diminish still more the 
 respiratory capacity of the upper portions, and favor tubercula- 
 tion. If the 10,387 deaths which occurred in New York in 
 1872, of the four diseases most immediately connected with 
 respiration, viz., consumption, scrofula, pneumonia, and 
 bronchitis, a large proportion of whom were yaung women, do 
 not point the proper moral on this subject, then there is no use 
 in mortuary statistics. 
 
 The greater prevalence of dyspeptic and consumptive diseases 
 among women than men has caused some medical writers to 
 theorize that the explanation is to be found in original frailty. 
 But the contrary is true. In the normal condition woman has 
 the stronger vital and nutritive temperament, and is, constitu- 
 ionally, less predisposed to either consumption or dyspepsia 
 than man. There is a necessity and a reason for this. She is 
 provided by nature with a nutritive apparatus not only compe- 
 tent to nourish and sustain her own structures, but also able 
 to develop and nourish offspring. My opinion is, that, if men 
 would dress as the majority of women in fashionable life do, 
 there would be ten cases of consumption among them where 
 there is one now. 
 
 Another very prevalent source of dyspeptic conditions in 
 
8o 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 youth, resulting very frequently in consumption soon after ma- 
 turity, if not before, deserves special mention in this place, for 
 the special reason that it is never mentioned in medical books, 
 and seldom thought of by parents and teachers. I mean our 
 common schools. We are accustomed to impute our progress, 
 morality, and intelligence, to our churches and schools. This 
 is true, with some grains of allowance. But these drawbacks 
 are very serious ones. Most of the school-houses in our cities, 
 and not a few in the country, are pest-houses, very much in 
 the sense that tenement houses are. They are not properly 
 warmed in winter, and not properly ventilated at any season. 
 They are too hot or too cold in winter, and too redolent of 
 miasm in the summer. The scholars cannot get fresh air in 
 cold weather without a chilling draft, nor pure air in warm 
 weather under any circumstances. Many a private mansion, 
 occupied by half-a-dozen persons, has more of the " breath of 
 life " circulating through its rooms, than have some of our ward 
 school-houses where several hundred children are tortured into 
 "book knowledge," at the expense of vitality. As the air in 
 the room where fifty or a hundred children are crowded toge- 
 ther, is constantly vitiated by the exhalations from the skin and 
 lungs, it is impossible, in cold weather, to ventilate sufficiently 
 from the doors and windows without rendering the atmosphere 
 in various parts of the room too variable and uneven for health. 
 The only proper method of warming school-houses — and the 
 plan is equally applicable to churches, public halls, theatres, 
 etc. — is to have the fresh air conveyed from the outside of the 
 building, or from the hall within, through a tube or pipe under 
 the floor, to be discharged under the stove, or better still, into 
 the cylinder or air box adjoining the stove, so that the air could 
 be warmed before being diffused through the room. This 
 arrangement would secure a uniform temperature, and purify 
 the air without occasioning unwholesome or even unpleasant 
 currents. When buildings are heated by steam the same 
 arrangement for supplying fresh air is equally desirable, the 
 outer air being admitted under or adjoining the radiating coil 
 or plates. 
 
POSITION. 
 
 81 
 
 Moreover, school-children are, as a rule (I know of no ex- 
 ceptions), made to "sit still" too many hours in the day, and 
 on unhygienic seats at that. Not one growing child in ten can 
 be confined in a school more than three hours a day without 
 suffering more or less of debility and endangering life. Our sys- 
 tem of forced education — developing brain, or trying to, before 
 there is a physical basis — is all wrong, and is filling the land 
 with educated imbeciles — I mean young persons who have 
 information and accomplishments, but are useless to themselves 
 and a burden to others, because of ill-health. I regard school- 
 houses as among the worst causes of the general frailty, dys- 
 peptic tendencies, and consumptive sequaela that are said to be 
 peculiarly A» ttic in. 
 
Abbor Moeborum. 
 
DYS P EPSIA,. 
 
PART II. 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 NATURE OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 As digestion is the most complex of all the organic processes 
 its derangements, which constitute indigestion, or dyspepsia, 
 are the most complicated of all morbid conditions. Patho- 
 logically it may be said to be the sum of all chronic diseases, 
 as fever may be said to be the aggregate of all acute diseases ; 
 for there is not a symptom in all of the one thousand diseases 
 which make up the nosology, that is not found in some form, 
 state, or stage, of both dyspepsia and fever, with the single 
 exception of those which appertain to structural lesions. If all 
 the "phenomenology" which the confirmed dyspeptic experi- 
 ences in six or twelve months were suffered in the period of 
 twelve or twenty-four hours, the disease would be termed fever, 
 instead of dyspepsia ; and if the symptoms which belong to a 
 paroxysm of fever, and which mark its cold, hot, and sweating 
 stages, were extended over a period of some weeks or months, 
 the disease would be termed dyspepsia instead of fever. In 
 Doth cases the inability to nourish the body sufficiently is a 
 leading feature of the morbid manifestations ; but in fevers, 
 properly so called, the power of digestion and assimilation is 
 wholly suspended in the early stage, while in dyspepsia it is 
 only impaired. 
 
 It is a great mistake to regard dyspepsia as peculiarly or 
 especially a disease of the stomach. We have seen, in the 
 preceding explanations and illustrations, how essentially co- 
 
NATURE OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 *3 
 
 operative are a multitude of organs and structures in the digestive 
 processes. And they are just as co-implicated in the derange* 
 ment of these processes. In some cases one structure or organ 
 will be more obstructed, impaired, or deranged than others, and 
 in other cases two or more will be the seat of the more trouble- 
 some symptoms. Thus, one dyspeptic may have one of several 
 morbid conditions of the liver, as torpidity, congestion, indu- 
 ration, chronic inflammation, gall-stones, or abscess, as the 
 special complication of his case, and attended with jaundice, 
 difficult breathing, or palpitation, a sense of weight, tenderness 
 in the right side, spasms near the pyloric orifice, or throbbing 
 pains, as the most prominent symptom. Another will have 
 great distress, " goneness," acrid eructations, sick headache, 
 a cramp in the stomach, because of the acid and putrescent bile 
 which is occasionally emptied into the duodenum just below 
 the pit of the stomach. A third may have constipated bowels, 
 and a fourth diarrhoea, and a fifth these states interchangeably, 
 as the most troublesome manifestation of the general ailment ; 
 a sixth may have the vessels of the head so clogged with viscid 
 blood as to experience more headache, either constant or 
 periodical, than anything else to complain of; a seventh may 
 feel great distress after eating ; an eighth, frequent paroxysms of 
 \nausea and vomiting ; a ninth, capricious or craving appetite ; a 
 tenth loss of all appetite ; an eleventh, canker in the mouth, or 
 stomatitis; and a twelfth, general prostration, hypochondria, or 
 nervous debility, as the more distressing part of his case. Many 
 dyspeptics suffer in all of these ways, and have the symptoms 
 \ above enumerated as changeable as the winds, and quite as 
 uncertain with regard to rules for calculation as the weather 
 " probabilities." 
 
 Medical authors generally assign " weakness of the stomach " 
 as the essential proximate cause of dyspepsia. They might as 
 well say, weakness of the head, or heart, or hands, or feet ; all 
 are weak when the digestive processes fail to supply the ele- 
 ments of strength ; and the debility of the stomach or other 
 digestive organs, in any case of dyspepsia, is no greater and no 
 worse than that of all other parts of the body. Indeed, the 
 
84 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 difference is just the other way, for nutrition, being the first 
 and last process of organic life, all other parts of the system are 
 disproportionately debilitated when the digestive function is 
 impaired. Dyspepsia is, therefore, but a name for universal 
 physical deterioration, although the symptoms of the general 
 condition may embrace all the aches, pains and distresses that 
 our language can express. 
 
 The error of regarding dyspepsia as a local disease instead of 
 a constitutional infirmity, leads to the mischievous practice of 
 local medication ; and the weak stomach is excited with stimu- 
 lants, urged with tonics, soothed with nervines, quieted with 
 opiates, and modified with alteratives, while the other "chy- 
 loipcetic viscera," especially the ever-involved liver, are treated 
 to mercurials, not forgetting to remind the bowels of their re- 
 missness of duty by a succession of purgatives. These are 
 excellent methods for curing dyspepsia by killing the patient, 
 or to mitigate symptoms, by destroying vitality. 
 
 Professor George B. Wood, M. D., of Jefferson Medical 
 College, Philadelphia, is the author of the latest and largest 
 American work on the Theory and Practice of Medicine. In 
 this work (" Wood's Practice of Medicine"), which is a text- 
 book in our medical colleges, the author informs us that, 
 "The most prolific source of dyspepsia is probably the com- 
 bined influence of sedentary habits and errors of diet." 
 
 This being the case, it would surely seem that the combined 
 influence of appropriate exercise and a correct dietary ought to 
 be the sufficient remedies. The Professor does indeed tell 
 many things useful in the list of eatables and drinkables, and 
 some articles of each class to avoid, but the strange part of the 
 story is that he recommends, on his own reputation, or com- 
 mends on the opinion of other authors, in the treatment of 
 dyspepsia and its incidental affections, no less than a dozen 
 classes of medicines, and more than one hundred individual 
 drugs, to say nothing of the unmentioned ingredients in the 
 compounds, and the bleeding and blistering processes. 
 
 The individual remedies are, ipecacuanha, rhubarb, aloes, 
 castile soap, croton oil, Cheltenham salts, Saratoga water, 
 
NATURE OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 (which contains no less than ten drugs) sulphur, mustard seeds, 
 magnesia, quassia, columbo, gentian, chamomile, wild cherry 
 bark, serpentaria, carbonate of iron, copperas, carbonate of 
 soda, carbonate of potassa, powder of iron, tincture of chloride 
 of iron, iodide of iron, chalybeate mineral waters, oil of vitriol, 
 aqua fortis, muriatic acid, nitro-muriatic acid, subnitrate of 
 bismuth, white vitriol, lunar caustic, lactic acid, pepsin, rennet, 
 carbonic acid water, creosote, senna, orange peel, cloves, car- 
 damom, fennel seed, mercurial or blue pill, calomel, salt (in 
 the form of a warm salt bath), opium, mustard plaster, cayenne 
 pepper (in the stockings), burgundy pitch (as a plaster), ex- 
 tract of dandelion, magnesia, bicarbonate of soda, lime water, 
 prepared chalk, prepared oyster shell, carbonate of ammonia, 
 aqueous solution of ammonia, aromatic spirit of ammonia, 
 powdered charcoal, compound cathartic pill (composed of 
 several drugs), seidlitz powder, castor oil, mustard sinapisms 
 (over the stomach), preparations of codeia, leeching, cupping, 
 blisters, tartar emetic, setons, issues, moxa burnings, henbane, 
 stramonium, deadly night shade, extract of hemp, lactucari- 
 um, chloroform, prussic acid, tobacco (smoking), acetate of 
 morphia, sulphate of morphia, nux vomica (dogbane), oxide 
 of zinc, gallic acid, sulphate of quinia, laudanum, Hoffman's 
 anodyne, black drop, essence of peppermint, essence of spear- 
 mint, essence of pennyroyal, ginger-tea, compound spirit of 
 lavender, compound tincture of cardamom, oil of turpentine, 
 bleeding (in some cases largely), camphorated tincture of opi- 
 um, oil of horsemint, lemon juice, common salt, epsom salt, 
 cinnamon, brandy, spiced brandy, spiced wine, sparkling 
 wines, extract of belladonna, sulphite of soda, strong tea, 
 coffee, citrate of caffein, cologne water, cider, and arsenite of 
 potassa. 
 
 The list may seem very formidable at the first count, but as 
 the remedies are all directed against the symptoms, or effects, 
 and none of them against the causes, and as the symptoms of 
 dyspepsia, in all of its multitudinous forms and incidental 
 affections, embrace the whole range of pathological phenome- 
 nology, the list might be extended to the two thousand reme- 
 
86 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 dies of the drug materia medica, as well as limited to one or 
 two hundred — provided always, that drugs are the proper 
 remedies for dyspepsia. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 SPECIAL CAUSES OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 It is true, as a general proposition, that whatever impairs the 
 health of the whole system or any part of it, conduces to the 
 condition of defective nutrition termed dyspepsia. But there 
 are many agents and influences which seem to derange the vital 
 organism more prominently or more immediately in the primary 
 nutritive function, which may properly be treated of as the spe- 
 cial causes of dyspepsia. It is these agents and influences 
 which are enumerated, more or less in detail in medical 
 books, as causes of dyspepsia. 
 
 The special causes of dyspepsia are more comprehensively 
 and clearly stated by Dr. John Mason Good (" Study of Medi- 
 cine,") than in the writings of any later author with which I 
 am acquainted : 
 
 " The common causes, whether confined to the stomach, or 
 co-extensive with the associate viscera, may be contemplated 
 under two heads, local and general. The local remote causes 
 are, a too large indulgence in sedative and diluting substances ; 
 as tea, coffee, and warm water, or similar liquids taken as a 
 beverage ; or an equal indulgence in stimulant and acrid mate- 
 rials, as ardent spirits, spices, acids, tobacco, whether smoked 
 or chewed, snuffs, a daily habit of distending the stomach by 
 hard eating or drinking ; or a rigid abstemiousness, and very 
 protracted periods of fasting. The general remote causes 
 are, an indolent or sedentary life, in which no exercise is afford- 
 ed to the muscular fibres or mental faculties. Or, on the other 
 hand, habitual exhaustion from intense study, not properly 
 alternated with cheerful conversation ; becoming a prey to the 
 Violent passions, and especially those of the depressing kind, 
 
SPECIAL CAUSES OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 87 
 
 as fear, grief, deep anxiety ; immoderate libidinous indulgence, 
 and a life of too great muscular exertion. Perhaps the most 
 common of this latter class of causes are, late hours, and the 
 use of spirituous liquors." 
 
 There is one prolific cause of indigestion, and of those mos' 
 distressing complications, obstinate constipation, pile tumor. , 
 prolapsus of the lower bowel, fistula in ano, and fissures in the 
 rectum, which medical authors do not mention, although some 
 of them allude to it as among the general causes of indigestion. 
 I mean purgative or cathartic medicine, regular or irregular. 
 Torpid or inactive bowels is so nearly a universal condition in 
 civilized society, that purgative medicine of some kind is gene- 
 rally regarded as necessary as is food or drink. And people 
 generally regard them as among the most innocent, or at the 
 most, the least injurious of the various classes of medicines. 
 It is a disastrous mistake. Bad as liquor and tobacco are, 
 purgatives are much worse. A majority of persons may take 
 an ordinary drink or dose of rum, brandy, gin, or whisky, three 
 times a day with less injury to the health, than are doses of 
 jalap and cream of tartar, senna and salts, castor oil, or any of 
 the multitudinous aperient, purgative, bilious, or anti-bilious 
 pills that are swallowed by hundreds of tons annually. 
 
 It is well known to physicians that the habitual employment 
 of purgative medicines of any kind, however much it may 
 relieve temporarily, never fails to aggravate constipation in 
 the end. I have had patients to treat whose bowels, after being 
 pilled for a few years, would not move without special attention, 
 once a week. In one instance a patient came to me from 
 Europe to be treated for constipation. He had taken cathar- 
 tics regularly for a dozen years, and his bowels were so devital- 
 ized that, during a fifteen days' passage across the Atlantic, his 
 bowels did not move at all, nor did he experience the least indi- 
 cation in that direction. Women suffer more than men of 
 purgative medicines because their more sedentary habits seem 
 to require larger doses or more frequent repetitions. 
 
 The late Professor William Tully, M. D., of Yale College, 
 said to his medical class that more injury was done by the 
 
88 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 injudicious use of cathartics, by the regular profession, as a 
 whole, than by all other classes of medicines. 
 
 The late Professor Robley Dunglison, M. D. , in his work 
 "Therapeutics and Materia Medica," denounces the prevalent 
 employment of cathartics by physicians in no measured terms ; 
 and he quotes (Vol. I. page 176,) the eminent Dr. Stokes, of 
 London, with regard to their use in fevers, as follows : 
 
 "A common practice has prevailed in these countries, and 
 indeed, still exists to a very great extent, of making the patient 
 take purgative medicine every day ; and this, I regret to say, 
 is too often done even in cases where the surface of the small 
 intestine presents extensive patches of ulceration. Now, I will 
 ask you, can anything be so barbarous as this, or can it be ex- 
 ceeded in folly or mischief by the grossest acts of quackery ? 
 Here we have an organ in a state of high irritation, and exhib- 
 iting a remarkable excitement of its circulation, and yet we 
 proceed to apply stimulants to that organ, and to increase the 
 existing irritation. Would it not be absurd, in a case of in- 
 flammation of the knee or elbow-joint, to direct a patient to 
 use constant exercise and motion ? Would it not be a very 
 strange practice to apply irritants to a raw and excoriated sur- 
 face ? Yet something equally absurd and equally mischievous, 
 is done by those who employ violent purgatives in a case of 
 inflammation of the digestive tube in fever. This has been a 
 great blot in the history of British practice. Calomel and black 
 bottle, and even jalap and aloes, and scammony, have been 
 prescribed for patients laboring under severe and extensive 
 dothinenteritis. Morbid stools are discharged, and the more 
 morbid they are, the more calomel and purgatives does the 
 physician give to change their character, and bring them back 
 to the standard of health. I want words to express the horrible 
 consequences. Too often have I seen fever patients brought 
 into the hospital with diarrhoea, hypercatharsis, and inflamma- 
 tion of the mucous membrane from the use of purgatives 
 administered before their admission. Practitioners will not 
 open their eyes. They give purgatives day by day, a very easy 
 practice, and one for which there are plenty of precedents ; but 
 
SPECIAL CAUSES OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 8 9 
 
 it is fraught with most violent consequences. I will freely admit, 
 that the disciples of the school of Broussais have gone too far in 
 decrying the use of laxatives altogether. But if they have lost 
 hundreds by this error, British practitioners have killed thousands 
 by an opposite plan of treatment. In cases of fever where 
 there is no decided symptom of gastro-enteric disease, there 
 can be no objection to the use of laxatives, if required, but they 
 should always be of the mildest description. You will gain 
 nothing by violent purging in fever ; mild laxatives alone can 
 be employed ; and where there is any sign of intestinal irrita- 
 tion present, even these should be used with caution. There 
 is one mode of opening the bowels, which you may always have 
 recourse to with advantage in fever, viz., the use of enemata. 
 There is not the slightest doubt that, occasionally, accumu- 
 lations of fecal matter will take place, and tend to keep up irri- 
 tation, but they should always be removed with the least pos- 
 sible risk of producing bad consequences. To purge in fever 
 when intestinal irritation is present is a practice opposed alike 
 to theory and experience, and I have already stated that its 
 results are most horrible." 
 
 All the reasons which Dr. Stokes presents so forcibly against 
 the employment of cathartic drugs in* fevers, applies with still 
 greater emphasis against their employment in dyspepsia, for the 
 reason that, in fevers, the points of irritation are more diffused 
 throughout the system, whereas in dyspepsia they are more 
 concentrated along the tract of the alimentary canal. 
 
 The late Professor Charles A. Lee, M. D., in some editorial 
 notes to Copland's Medical Dictionary, pages 385 and 386, 
 makes a fearful and yet most truthful statement of the pills and 
 other causes now in operation to extend and perpetuate dyspep- 
 sia among the people of the United States. There is food for 
 reflection in the following paragraphs : 
 
 " Dyspepsia is, comparatively, a modern disease in our 
 country, having been scarcely known until within the last thirty 
 years (1846). Our ancestors, as stated by an accurate 
 observer, were accustomed to much bodily exertion ; there 
 were but few pleasure or wheel-carriages in the country ; both 
 
DO 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 males and females generally rode on horseback ; professional 
 men almost universally had farms, on which they labored more 
 or less ; merchants were also frequently engaged in mechanical 
 pursuits ; the habits of living were simple and frugal ; intoxi- 
 cating liquors were seldom drunk ; religious excitements, so 
 destructive to the health both of body and mind, were almost 
 unknown ; regular and natural hours of sleeping and eating 
 were observed ; and these circumstances proved highly propi- 
 tious in securing the general enjoyment of bodily health and 
 mental vigor.* These salutary habits, however, have been 
 gradually exchanged for those of a more unnatural and injuri- 
 ous tendency ; bodily labor, carried to the point of fatigue, is 
 now deemed degrading, if not decidedly vulgar ; languishing 
 in easy carriages has succeeded to equestrian habits and equita- 
 tion ; professional men confine themselves to the legitimate 
 business of their calling ; excitements of every kind, civil, 
 political, religious, mesmeric, are the order of the day ; habits 
 of luxurious living have become general ; alcoholic drinks 
 are more extensively used than formerly, although a great 
 improvement has taken place within the last few years ; the 
 almost universal practice prevails of using tobacco in some form; 
 habits of inactivity, tight-lacing, keeping late hours, &c, are 
 gradually undermining the health of the female sex, and lay- 
 ing the foundation of gastric affections ; and all these causes, 
 with numerous others that might be named, are slowly deteri- 
 orating the health of the community, and their effects are 
 likely to become still more evident and distressing in the next 
 and succeeding generations. " 
 
 How fearfully the prediction has been realized, as any one 
 may see in the skeleton forms, gaunt abdomens, caved-in 
 chests, projecting shoulders, wan complexions, dyspeptic walk, 
 and consumptive look of the fashionable young ladies and 
 gentlemen who promenade the thoroughfares of our great 
 cities. Of the pill business, Professor Lee says : 
 
 " Another very prominent cause of the prevalence of indi- 
 
 * "A Dissertation on Chronic Debility of the Stomach, by Benjamin Wolsey Dwight, 
 in Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. New Haven, llxj." 
 
SPECIAL CAUSES OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 91 
 
 gestion in this country is the excessive use of cathartic medi- 
 cine in the form of pills. Were we to give the amount of the 
 latter annually swallowed in the United States, the statement 
 would not be believed ; and yet we have it from good authority, 
 namely, that of the manufacturer himself, that one establish- 
 ment in the city (New York, ) turns out, by the aid of steam, 
 no less than ten barrels per day, and this is by no means so 
 extensive as some others of a similar kind. These pills, which 
 are highly drastic, are used by immense numbers of people, 
 not only in cases of actual illness, but in time of health, as 
 prophylactic remedies. The consequences are easily predicted. 
 In addition to this, great quantities of bitters are used, in 
 which brandy, wine, or some alcoholic liquor forms the princi- 
 pal ingredient ; and on the occurrence of the least feeling of 
 discomfort, recourse is had to the panacea, till at length the 
 powers of the stomach are exhausted, and derangements either 
 functional or structural take place. We could wish that the 
 epitaph of the Italian count could be placed so as to be seen 
 by every man, woman, and child : ' / was well — wished to be 
 better — took physic, and died.' 
 
 " Much of this evil is doubtless owing to physicians, who have 
 been too much in the habit of pouring down drugs empirically 
 in every case of illness, slight or severe, in order to humor a 
 popular notion that the materia medica must furnish a remedy 
 for every disease, and a popular prejudice that want of success 
 is a sure indication of poverty of resource on the part of the 
 practitioner." 
 
 A little figuring will give us a more realizing sense of the 
 extent to which the people are pilled. Our population has 
 doubled since Dr. Lee wrote the above, and pill-makers have 
 multiplied ; and as there could not have been less than half-a- 
 dozen establishments in a single one of our cities, manufactur- 
 ing each ten barrels per day, the quantity now made daily can- 
 not be less than one hundred barrels per day ; and then Phila- 
 delphia does an extensive business in the same line, as do 
 Boston and other cities. But, reckoning the pills turned out 
 
9 2 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 in the city of New York alone, let us see how the mattel 
 stands, Pills vs. People. 
 
 A barrel of pills will weigh about as many pounds as a bar- 
 rel of pork, and a pill of average size three and a half grains. 
 From this data the expert in arithmetic may soon ascertain that 
 the good people of this enlightened nation are provided with 
 the bowel-moving agencies of fifteen billion nine hundred and 
 ninety-one million, six hundred thousand individual pills annu- 
 ally. But our statistics thus far represent only the irregular 
 trade. If we add the pills orthodoxically prescribed, we may 
 swell the amount to twenty billions — two billions of pills for 
 each million of our population, or five hundred pills for every 
 man, woman, and child. And yet our ciphering is not com- 
 plete. Young children cannot swallow pills ; there are 
 Homoeopathists who do not believe in them, and Hygienists 
 who never take medicine of any kind ; hence a nice calculation 
 may allow the actual pill-takers about one thousand a year each, 
 averaging within a fraction of three pills per day. How long the 
 human stomach and bowels can stand this pill-trade is, like 
 the problem of the final consummation of all things, only a 
 question of time. The fact that our people ' ' still live " under 
 it, is a sufficient demonstration that " humanity %s tough." 
 Such a treatment of our domestic animals would exterminate 
 them in a single generation. 
 
 In a late work on Indigestion, by Arthur Leared, M. D., 
 extracts from which appear in the Popular Science Monthly for 
 May, 1872, the following remarks are made in relation to the 
 most prominent causes of dyspepsia : 
 
 "At all stages of adult life, but particularly during its 
 decline, the appetite is over-stimulated by condiments, and 
 tempted to excess by culinary refinements. Dyspepsia is not 
 the worst result of this. Gout, and still more serious mala- 
 dies connected with an impure state of the blood, closely 
 follow." 
 
 "Two habits, smoking and taking snuff, require special 
 notice as causes of dyspepsia. Excessive smoking produces 
 si depressed condition of the system, and a great waste of 
 
SPECIAL CAUSES OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 93 
 
 saliva, if the habit of spitting is encouraged. I have met some 
 severe cases of dyspepsia clearly resulting from these causes. 
 Some individuals are unable to acquire the habit of smoking 
 even moderately. Deadly paleness, nausea, vomiting, inter- 
 mittent' of pulse, with great depression of the circulation, 
 come on whenever it is attempted. But this incapacity is 
 exceptional, and so universal is the desire for tobacco, that it 
 seems as if some want of the system is supplied by its use." 
 
 What is the ' ' excessive " use of tobacco, or any other 
 poison ? One might as well talk of excessive lying, or excess- 
 ive stealing, as though moderation in these habits might be 
 judicious, or necessary ! Nor does the great number that 
 have depraved their instincts and become addicted to tobacco- 
 using, make the vice a virtue. As well might the general 
 prevalence of gambling or prostitution, in any given locality 
 (Wall Street, Five-Points), be adduced as the evidence that 
 gambling, or prostitution supplied some want of the system. 
 And, verily, it does. But it is the craving of a demoralized 
 mental or a debauched physical nature. 
 
 It seems quite impossible for a modern medical author to 
 write anything about tobacco or alcohol without doing it with 
 the "modern improvements'' of logic. He knows they are 
 bad. He knows the people are very much addicted to them. 
 He cannot stultify himself by saying they are not injurious. 
 He cannot stultify his business by saying they are wholly evil, 
 and that continually. And so he compromises by condemn- 
 ing their excessive and commending their moderate employ- 
 ment, leaving his readers to find out where moderation ends 
 and excess begins — in the grog-shop, the gutter, or the drunk- 
 ard's grave, if they can. 
 
 Winslow's Soothing Syrup. 
 
 Perhaps no single quack nostrum is doing more mischief in 
 our country at this time, in deranging the digestive organs of 
 infants, paralyzing their nerves, stupefying their intellects, 
 and laying the foundation for dyspeptic miseries and mental 
 
94 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 imbecilities in later life, than this pernicious opiate. The 
 Druggists Circular says : 
 
 "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup has several times been 
 condemned in the columns of The Druggists' Circular, but 
 we have not published the formula. The original recipe is 
 kept secret, but the results of analysis have been made known. 
 It has been shown that one ounce of the syrup contains one 
 grain of morphia. If, then, Mrs. Winslow's instructions be 
 followed, the dose for an infant three months old contains an 
 equivalent of ten drops of laudanum, and this Mrs. Winslow 
 recommends to be repeated every two hours ! The injury that 
 may be done by the ignorant use of such a nostrum is hardly 
 to be estimated ; and yet a calculation has been made that not 
 less than fifteen million ounces of the syrup are annually sold 
 in the United States ; in other words, that the children of this 
 country are dosed every year with as many million grains of 
 morphia !" 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SYMPTOMS OE DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 As already stated, the symptoms of dyspepsia are as numer- 
 ous and as complicated as are morbid conditions and abnormal 
 sensations. In number and severity they vary infinitely, some 
 dyspeptics being able to attend to their ordinary business and 
 duties, and only experiencing occasional pain or distress in the 
 stomach or auxiliary digestive organs, while others are unable 
 to do anything but dwell despondently on their miserable feel- 
 ings, and are, indeed, as wretched as human nature can bear 
 and live. 
 
 The symptoms attending the more important phases of the 
 disease have been explained in connection with the organs and 
 structures to whose special functional disturbance they are 
 more particularly referable, in the first part of this work. I 
 
SYMPTOMS OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 95 
 
 will only add the description of Dr. Good, whose admirable 
 work, though not now a text-book in our medical colleges, is 
 a vastly more useful work for the medical student or the non- 
 professional reader, than any work on the Theory and Practice 
 of Medicine that has appeared since. 
 
 " Dyspepsia may be regarded as consisting of the combina- 
 tion of several morbid conditions, irregularly intermixed ; 
 sometimes one set of symptoms taking the lead, and some- 
 times another ; with a peculiar tendency to costive bowels, and 
 especially that species of costiveness dependent on a weakly 
 temperament or a sedentary habit, and in which the discharged 
 foeces, instead of being congestive and voluminous, are hard, 
 slender, and often scybalous. Dyspepsia, therefore, in the 
 language of Dr. Cullen, may be described as a want of appetite, 
 a squeamishness, sometimes a vomiting, sudden and transient 
 distentions of the stomach, eructations of various kinds, heart- 
 burn, pains in the region of the stomach, and a bound belly. 
 Yet none of these are universally present, and all of them 
 seldom. So that, as already observed, the symptoms of car- 
 dialgia, flatulence, and vomiting, with a few others, enter in 
 irregular modifications into dyspepsia, as those of dyspepsia 
 enter into hypochondriasis. 
 
 ' ' There is also another complaint which frequently enters 
 into the multiform combination of maladies, of which dyspep- 
 sia is the general expression, and which has been rarely noticed 
 by writers, although it is often a very troublesome symptom, 
 and that is gravel. In treating of gravel, or lithia, as an 
 idiopathic affection, we shall have to notice that one of its 
 chief and most common causes is an excess of acidity in the 
 prima vice ; and, as such excess is almost constantly to be 
 found in dyspepsia, gravel must frequently attend or follow, 
 and is even a necessary effect where there exists what has been 
 called a calculous diathesis. And, for a like reason, where 
 there is a podagric diathesis, gout, in some form or other, is a 
 frequent concomitant/' 
 
 1 'In dyspepsia the debility is not often confined to the 
 stomach, but extends to the intestinal canal, and the collati- 
 
9 6 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 tious viscera, as the mesentery, the spleen, the pancreas, <uid 
 especially the liver, in which it most frequently commences ; 
 and hence another cause of the great complexity of this disease. " 
 
 ' 'The debility, and indeed torpitude of the intestinal canal, 
 is evident from the habitual costiveness which so peculiarly 
 characterizes this affection. Whether this be direct or indirect* 
 intrinsic or sympathetic, as harmonizing with the weakness of 
 the stomach, it is not easy to determine ; but nothing can be 
 a stronger proof of the great inactivity of the intestinal tube, 
 from whatever cause produced, than the feebleness of its 
 peristaltic motion, notwithstanding the acrimonious matters 
 that are so frequently diffused over its inner surface." 
 
 "The imbecility of the liver is equally obvious in most 
 cases, from the small quantity of bile that seems to be excreted, 
 or its altered and morbid hue, as evinced by the color of the 
 foeces, which, in some instances, are of an unduly dark, and 
 in others of an unduly light tint ; and possibly from the inac- 
 tivity of the intestines themselves, whose peristaltic motion is 
 conceived by Dr. Saunders and other pathologists to be, in a 
 great measure, kept up by the stimulus of the bile. ,; 
 
 "When the mesentery is affected the chyle is generally 
 obstructed in its passage to the thoracic duct, and the general 
 frame, deprived of its needful nutrition, becomes flaccid and 
 emaciated ; and from a collapse of the minute vessels on the 
 surface, assumes a wan or sallow complexion." 
 
 "It is highly probable that the pancreas and spleen are 
 both also affected in many cases of dyspepsia. Of the actual 
 I part taken by either, in the process of digestion, we know but 
 little ; but we do know that the pancreas pours forth a con- 
 siderable portion of the fluid which holds the solid part of our 
 aliment in solution ; while in most of the cases of dyspepsia 
 brought on by a habit of drinking spirituous liquors, the spleen 
 is evidently affected as well as the liver. " 
 
 " It is in this stage of the disease that we frequently meet 
 the tenderness or other uneasiness in the epigastric region, and 
 that peculiar hardness of the pulse, often accompanied by 
 febrile symptoms, which Dr. Wilson Philip has pointed out 
 
SYMPTOMS OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 97 
 
 as pathognomonic of what he calls a second stage of the dis- 
 ease. " 
 
 "It has also been well observed by Dr. Philip, that the 
 lungs are, in many instances, apt to associate in the morbid 
 action of the digestive organs, when it has become chronic, 
 and to produce, as a result, a peculiar variety of consumption, 
 to which he has given the name of dyspeptic phthisis. The 
 dyspeptic character of the disease, however, and especially the 
 hepatic symptoms, together with those of lowness of spirits, 
 flatulence, and other hypochondriacal affections, rarely fail to 
 accompany it when complicated with phthisis, and point out 
 its real source ; and the cure must be chiefly directed to the 
 primary malady, how much soever the induced symptoms may 
 also demand our attention ; for it will be in vain to subdue the 
 latter, while the former is still suffered to bear sway." 
 
 "It must nevertheless be admitted, that in some instances 
 the secondary disease seems to afford relief to the primary, and 
 that the organ first affected recovers its health in proportion as 
 that subsequently affected yields to the attack ; in the same 
 manner as, in erysipelas and the migratory forms of herpes, 
 the eruption travels forward, the part relinquished heals, and 
 fresh parts are affected in succession. In all such cases, the 
 secondary complaint becomes a new malady, and must often 
 be followed up under another principle and another mode of 
 treatment. " 
 
 "Under whatever form, and from whatever cause the disease 
 occurs, there is a considerable degree of general languor and 
 debility. Exercise or exertion of any kind soon fatigues ; the 
 pulse is weak ; the sleep disturbed ; the extremities are cold, 
 or rendered so on slight occasions ; and the tongue for the 
 most part is fussed, or covered with a creamy mucus in the 
 morning. Yet this last symptom is not always to be depended 
 on ; for it is sometimes wanting in the disease." 
 
 "That dyspepsia should be connected with a morbid con- 
 dition of any of the adjoining organs, is by no means difficult 
 to conceive, when we reflect that they are all concerned, directly 
 or indirectly, in completing the great object of the digestive 
 
9 8 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 process, which is that of furnishing a constant supply of nutri- 
 tion for the system at large. " 
 
 Not half a century ago, it became a fashion with some 
 physicians, in obscure and complicated cases of indigestion, 
 when diagnosis was dubious and prognosis impracticable, es- 
 pecially after the patient had " suffered many things of many 
 physicians/' to request the patient to make a written list of his 
 symptoms, as they occurred from day to day. But it was found 
 to work like Homoeopathic ' ' provings. " If the experimentee 
 swallow an inappreciable particle of preparata creta, diluted in, 
 diffused through, or potentized by, ten thousand trillion times 
 its bulk or weight of water, he may count five, fifty, five hun- 
 dred, or five thousand "symptoms," according to the time 
 and attention that he will give to the subject. So with these 
 miserable dyspeptics, made more miserable by the miserable 
 business of thinking of their miseries. There was no end to 
 their miserable and ever changing sensations. The moment 
 a confirmed dyspeptic undertakes 4 'to see how he feels," and 
 make a record of his morbid sensations, he can always have a 
 day's work before him. He can write down symptoms day 
 after day, ' ' from the rising of the sun to the going down of 
 the same," besides dreaming of them half the night. That 
 inimitable lithograph of equine pathology, on sale at the horse 
 bazaars, denominated "The Horse with all Diseases, " whose 
 deformed body, distorted joints, dilapidated surface, abrasions, 
 swellings, ulcers, and emaciation represent sixty-four distinct 
 maladies, does not indicate more phenomenology than almost 
 any dyspeptic, who has been cured half a dozen times, can 
 count if you give him time enough. 
 
 Many febrile patients are drugged into chronic diseases, 
 which invariably present some one or more of the numerous 
 phases of dyspepsia ; and many of the worst symptoms of 
 which most dyspeptics complain, are nothing more nor less 
 than the effects of the medicines they have taken. Women, in 
 this respect, suffer much more than men do, for the reason that, 
 being more dyspeptic, they are doctored more. The following 
 remarks, quoted from my work on "The Health and Diseases 
 
SYMPTOMS OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 99 
 
 of Women," published at the Health Reformer office, Battle 
 Creek, Michigan, will apply, with some qualification, which 
 the reader will readily appreciate, to men as well as women : 
 
 1 ' Drugging during Pregnancy. — But if the woman escapes 
 with dear life the ailments incident to puberty, other perils are 
 before her. In the common order of events, the matrimonial 
 relation is formed. Then come child-birth and nursing, with 
 all their joys and sorrows. Lucky is the woman who can, on 
 these occasions, escape the doctor's lancet and drugs. During 
 pregnancy, she usually suffers more or less of nausea, cramps, 
 constipation, vertigo, etc., for which she is bled, physicked, and 
 narcotized, predisposing her to hemorrhage, milk-leg, broken 
 breast, and other sequela, and multiplying the occasions for 
 taking more medicines. 
 
 " Drugging during the Lying-in Period. — After confine- 
 ment, the majority of women are troubled (and no wonder) 
 more or less with indigestion, constipation, sour stomach, flat- 
 ulence, sore mouth, sick headache, etc. , for which chalk, soda, 
 saleratus, magnesia, lunar caustic, bismuth, blue pill, etc., are 
 prescribed. And now the medicines are doing a double work 
 of mischief. The drugs which she is continually taking into 
 her system, under the name of medicine, deprave the blood, 
 vitiate all of the secretions, and poison the very fountain 
 whence the new-born being derives its nourishment. 
 
 ' 'These drug poisons must be expelled. The living system 
 gets rid of them through every available channel. And that 
 portion which passes off with the milk often destroys the life of 
 the nursing infant, or renders it a puny, feeble thing for life. 
 So much for the child. It must be at all times liable to can- 
 ker, colic, humors, rashes, convulsions, and death, so long as 
 its mother is continually taking into her system that which con- 
 taminates and impoverishes the only source of its subsistence. 
 
 4 'Chronic Drug Disease. — But if the mother survive the 
 terrible ordeal which a false medical system imposes on her, 
 there is yet trouble enough in the future. The dosings of 
 infancy, the druggings of puberty, and the poisonings of her 
 maternity, have laid the foundations for innumerable and name- 
 
100 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 less chronic diseases; and now these must be doctored secundem 
 ariem. And thus medical science has laid the foundation for 
 an extensive practice in the healing art — provided the patient 
 lives long enough. 
 
 In due time the woman comes to be regarded as a confirmed 
 invalid. And no sooner is she " cured " of one malady, than 
 another " sets in. " 
 
 How strange that some new disease is always ready to 
 "supervene " so soon as the existing one is "subdued !" Her 
 aches and pains, and " sinking spells," and flutterings, and 
 gonenesses, and short breathings, and palpitations, and dragging 
 sensations, and nervousness, require, in the judgment of the 
 family physician, a course of tonics, nervines, and stimulants, 
 and quassia, carbonate of ammonia, assafetida, castor, musk, 
 valerian, spices, aromatics, phosphate of iron, or iron-by-hy- 
 drogen, wine, brandy, porter, ale, lager beer, etc. , etc. 
 
 She is also put on the medico-slop diet of the pharmacopoeias 
 — fed on such delicate abominations as panada, starch pud- 
 dings, beef tea, mutton broth, oyster soup, chicken gravy, 
 buttered toast, and sugar nick-nacs. In a word, instead of 
 being nourished and strengthened, she is merely stuffed and 
 stimulated. 
 
 All this makes a bad matter worse; and at length the doctor, 
 having treated the general dyspeptic condition for a few months, 
 or a few years, looks a little deeper into the case, and finds out 
 that the patient has a torpid liver. Then come calomel and 
 opium, perhaps blue pill again, to "touch up" the hepatic 
 function, with henbane, or conium, or morphia, to quiet the 
 irritation. 
 
 Well, in due time the torpid liver is " cured," or its action 
 so depressed that it ceases to make any further resistance to the 
 medicines, and now the doctor discovers that jaundice has ' 4 set 
 in." Verily it has. And the drugs are just what have set 
 it in. 
 
 But this jaundice must be "treated ;" and so the persevering 
 physician doses it, or the patient, with a combination of " alte- 
 ratives " — antimony, hydriodate of potassa, yellow dock, bitter 
 
SYMPTOMS OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 lot 
 
 sweet, blue flag, mandrake, black cohosh, corrosive sublimate, 
 iodine, and arsenic. 
 
 And thus another set of poisons are sent into the vital do- 
 main, with the inevitable result of another set of drug diseases. 
 
 Soon, another diagnosis is made, and the disease is pro- 
 nounced kidney complaint. This is medicated with leeches, 
 cuppings, salts, antiphlogistics, diuretics, alkalies and counter 
 irritants, and the next phase of the malady is said to be nervous 
 debility. And again the patient must be put on tonics, stimulants, 
 and nervines, as lunar caustic, phosphorus, ammonia, extract 
 of hops, cascarilla, myrrh, hypophosphites, preparations of 
 iron, camphor, ether, spirits of nitre, compound spirits of la- 
 vender, golden seal, unicorn, wormwood, thoroughwort, skunk 
 cabbage, etc., etc. 
 
 When the sensibility of the nervous system is sufficiently 
 subdued, the nervous debility is as subdued also. The disease 
 is "cured,'' though the patient is nearly killed ; but no sooner 
 is the cure achieved than (how unfortunate !) still another dis- 
 ease " supervenes.'' Now the muscular system gives out ; the 
 back becomes weak, and the limbs tremulous. The kind and 
 ever-faithful physician now diagnosticates spinal irritation. Still 
 he is not without hope for his patient. The resources of his 
 art are immense. There are in the apothecary shop at least 
 one thousand drugs which he has not yet administered, and 
 there are numerous processes which he has not yet brought 
 into requisition. Why should he be discouraged? So long as 
 there is life there is hope — at least of making a bill. 
 
 Blistering, cupping, leeching, scarifying, pustulations, cau- 
 stics, issues, setons, moxa burnings and the actual cautery, are 
 the scientific remedies for spinal irritation. 
 
 The marring, and scarring, and haggling, and mangling, 
 finally overcome the spinal irritation, and then we come to the 
 end of the chapter, which is neuralgia. 
 
 Neuralgia is regarded as incurable. But there is one conso- 
 lation — there aie no more diseases to "set in." The patient 
 has got below the range of their action, and hence cannot be 
 *' attacked " by them. Her vitality is too low to respond to 
 
102 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 morbific causes, hence they may remain in her system without 
 any special effort to get rid of them. She cannot, therefore, 
 have any particular disease known to the nosology, but she 
 can be very wretched. 
 
 The doctors can cure almost everything except neuralgia. 
 We have seen how effectually they cure dyspepsia, liver com 
 plaint, jaundice, kidney disease, nervous debility and spinal 
 irritation, but neuralgia is peculiarly a " medicorum oppro- 
 brium. ,, Yet medical science does not wholly despair, it can 
 still "alleviate the symptoms.'' For what did "nature pro- 
 vide " morphine, quinine, stramonium, belladonna, prussic 
 acid, veratria, aconite, chloroform, digitalis, henbane, ratsbane, 
 dogsbane, fleabane, and all the banes, venoms and viruses, all 
 the drugs and die stuffs, and dregs and scum of the mineral, 
 vegetable, and animal kingdoms, except to quiet pain ? And 
 so long as the poor patient is dosed with narcotics and de- 
 pressants below the point of susceptibility, she may be kept 
 oblivious of misery. Has not medicine been entitled the art 
 divine? I fear the Irish doctor was not far wrong when he 
 presented a bill to his wealthy neighbor: "To curing your 
 wife till she died. " 
 
 And now after medical skill has done its best, or its worst, 
 surgical ingenuity exhausts itself in vain efforts to repair the 
 damages occasioned by bad living and worse doctoring. The 
 uterine organs become permanently congested, relaxed, and 
 debilitated, ulcerations occur, excrescences form, and displace- 
 ments result. 
 
 These are treated indiscriminately with astringents, caustics, 
 pessaries, braces, leechings, scarifyings and burnings, which, 
 although in some cases temporary relief is obtained, never fail 
 to aggravate the difficulties in the end. 
 
 Induration, paralysis, fistulous openings, extensive inflam- 
 mations, permanent adhesions, fungous excrescences, and can- 
 cerous ulcerations, are among the frightful catalogue of evils 
 which result from these attempts to give " mechanical support" 
 to the displaced viscera. 
 
 Not long since, I had a patient under treatment for erosive 
 
SYMPTOMS OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 103 
 
 or cancerous degeneration of the uterus, the consequence of the 
 prolonged employment Of pessaries. And a few years ago, I 
 was consulted by a lady who had a fistulous ulcer opening ex- 
 ternally from the bowels, just below the umbilicus, through 
 which the fecal matters were discharged, produced by wearing 
 an " abdominal supporter," 
 
 A few years ago, I visited a young lady in Philadelphia who 
 had been a bed-ridden invalid for fifteen years, in consequence 
 of a retroversion of the womb. Her father was wealthy and 
 had employed the most eminent physicans and surgeons of that 
 doctor-making city, who had invented a bureau drawer full of 
 "supporters " for the displaced organ ; and they had ' ' toned her 
 up " with tonics, and " quieted her down " with nervines, and 
 nourished her on "blood-food" preparations of iron, until her 
 muscular system was as flimsy as a wet rag. And these are but 
 examples of hundreds whose cases have come under my ob- 
 servation and treatment. 
 
 I cannot pursue this branch of my subject here. Those who 
 would have fuller information are referred to my larger works, 
 "Pathology of the Reproductive Organs," and "Uterine 
 Diseases and Displacements. " The limits of this work will 
 only enable me to show the errors and absurdities of the 
 prevailing medical system, and indicate "the better way." 
 
 As future generations may prosper or must perish, just as 
 the mothers of the race maintain or lose their vital stamina, I 
 cannot forbear copying the following appeal to Christians, 
 from that excellent monthly, The Christian Monitor. It ought 
 to be distributed as a tract in every Sunday-school in the land : 
 
 THF PRIME CAUSES OF WOMAN S SUFFERINGS. 
 
 BY JOSSI ANN MAI. 
 
 The principle of progression in human nature furnishes the proposition 
 " that it is not the goal, but the course which makes us happy " — not so 
 much the possession of an object as the pursuit that gives pleasure. If this 
 is true, it is also true, that a consciousness that one's course will not secure 
 the object sought, will incur great discomfiture and its consequent evils ; 
 for while the attainment of earthly prizes do not satisfy, they lure us on, 
 compensating and withholding in advance according to the course. Life 
 & repetition of causes an4 effects, of efforts and rewards, or punishments, 
 
104 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 which are but the tiny ripples of its sea, that must widen and extend into 
 corresponding shapes in the great ocean of eternity for all its possessors. 
 
 We do not advocate the doctrine, that a man's temporal life on earth, 
 antetypes his employment in heaven ; but we do believe that the degree of 
 moral power possessed here must characterize, at least his infancy, in the 
 world to come. " In the place where the tree falleth there it shall lie." 
 " He that is unjust let him be unjust still ; he that is holy, let him be holy 
 still." " My reward is with me to give to every man according as his work 
 shall be." 
 
 Therefore when one has enumerated to himself from infancy to old age 
 the fruit, which should be the perpetual outgrowth of his nature in order to 
 obtain the eternal meet awarded to Christians, and finds himself failing, 
 and refailing, m his efforts to produce them, it discourages and demoralizes; 
 and in many persons produces their descent into the depths of immorality; 
 others, perhaps, more hopeful and persevering in their natures, press on, 
 but suffer material demoralization, by a recognition of the result, which 
 may come of the knotty, wormy, imperfect fruits, which are the issues of 
 their life. 
 
 Not unfrequently have I met women who have assured me, in the grief 
 and agony of their souls, that they would be good, and subdue their exci- 
 table, passionate dispositions, if they could. They had married with bright 
 hopes, and the determination to live useful, noble lives; had been obliged 
 to work hard, with no time for mental cultivation; their husbands had gone 
 on from one degree of improvement to another, until they were no company 
 for each other; which is always heart-rending to a sensible woman; child- 
 ren had come fast and were growing up disobedient and untrained; they 
 felt responsible for it, for their course had been unsteady, fretful and pas-» 
 sionate; they had tried again and again to be firm, kind and judicious; 
 but ere they were aware of it, would find themselves, in a fit of anger, shorn 
 of their strength. And so they had come to the conclusion that " They 
 could not be good and there was no use of trying." 
 
 But what is the cause of all this? Effect must have cause. Two items 
 furnish the causes — one the primary, the other, the secondary. First, an 
 unwholesome training in youth — when, if that sublime injunction, ''Know 
 thyself" had been obeyed, by a study of the mental, moral, and physical 
 laws of the human being, — the importance of obeying them, and the 
 strength and power of reason acquired for self-control - accidents and casu- 
 alties aside — the secondary, poor health, might have been avoided, and 
 the great behest of life nobly and sublimely fulfilled. 
 
 But no — the announcement that a girl baby is born is equivalent to cram- 
 ming its head with the rules of etiquette, coquetry, and a fashionable toi- 
 lette, instead of anything that would contribute to the magnanimous sym- 
 metrical development of the immortal spirit. The instruction is early given, 
 that the one who plays the round of fashionable life the most successfully, 
 
SYMPTOMS OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 105 
 
 will bear off the palm ofbeauty and grace, indicative of woman's highest 
 capabilities ;— hence the distorted spine, wasp waist, tiny feet, pale- 
 faced, sickly, sentimental, passionate, powerless woman ! All this second- 
 arily, the outgrowth of false dressing, excesses and irregularities in eating, 
 drinking, sleeping, and slothful inactivity. 
 
 Probably no country furnishes such multitudes of peevish, fretful, nervous 
 women as the United States. Who can wonder that one is all worn down 
 with nervous debility, and only keeps herself up by stimulants ; another 
 afflicted with that terrible disease, nervous dyspepsia, which congests the 
 brain, and affects the mind so seriously that an eminent physician has com- 
 pared persons thus diseased, to the ancients possessed with evil spirits ; 
 another with engorgement of the portal vein and blood-vessels of the liver, 
 thus interfering with its depuratory office, and not only clogging up the 
 system, but mind ; another with consumption ; another, diseases peculiar 
 to her sex, which have the most direful effect upon the system ; and still 
 another with scrofula in some form, creating not only a feverish, excitable 
 condition of body, but mind, making its position unreliable. Yes, I say, 
 who can wonder that these things are so, if they consider the customs and 
 manner of life of women. 
 
 Lacing is the universal practice, and it sometimes seems that all are aim- 
 ing at perfection of deformity, if possible. Let one enforce by example or 
 word, the importance of a dress reform, and how soon will all unite to show 
 their dexterity, in pitching the sarcastic quoits of ignorance at her ; as 
 though they would be doing God service if they could cause her to re- 
 nounce common sense for the pursuit of disobedience to physical laws, and 
 thereby bring on the long catalogue of diseases consequent upon the pres- 
 sure of the vital organs — and all this is done to secure false beauty and 
 symmetry of form. 
 
 Let us consider the difference in the dressing of a boy and girl. Hi* 
 clothing reaches from head to foot, and hand, equally distributed and 
 loosely made, which is calculated to induce good circulation and develop- 
 ment, from two reasons : — first, there are no bands or corsets to form liga 
 tures of compression and irritation about his body ; — secondly, equality of 
 clothing secures equality of warmth, and hence, there are no cold extrem 
 ities deserted of the blood, which must congest in some other part of the 
 body. He must wear flannel, wadded coats and vests, with thick-soled 
 boots, reaching to the knees, as a protection. How is it with the little 
 girl ? Her mother, supposed to be her best friend, will send her out on a 
 cold winter day, with one -third the amount of clothing she does her boy. 
 Thin shoes reaching just above her ankle, with one thickness, (a cotton or 
 woollen stocking,) reaching to the knee ; two or three thin layers of thin 
 cloth over the arms ; perhaps a little more about the waist and shoulders. 
 But it would not do to burden her with the amount of clothing the boy 
 
io6 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 wears, or rather, it would prevent the exhibition of the delicate form, which 
 the mother had contended for with dame Nature. 
 
 But is this all ? If it were, we might hope for a more speedy recovery of 
 woman's health ; for the world is becoming aroused about the necessity of 
 a dress reform which is destined to secure improvements at least. I 
 believe that one of the greatest evils of woman's life is intemperate eating. 
 Her first sin was committed in eating, and we are inclined to think her last 
 will be, when we hear Christian women talking like this : — " Do you suppose 
 I would deny myself of what I wanted if I knew it would make me sick?" 
 Dear sisters, I pray you, for 'tis to you that I write, not to close your ears 
 to the fact, that our God is a God of justice, and that He would not have 
 framed and established laws in the human being, without attaching a pen. 
 alty to their disobedience ; and that in nine cases out of ten, sickness is 
 traceable to over-eating, or the eating of such combinations as would de- 
 stroy the stomach of a horse. 
 
 Oh, woman, how can you consciously deprave and vitiate the powers 
 which God designed should glorify His name, by the influence of their 
 fullest capacity, by being a submissive slave to the lowest passions of your 
 nature ? That this is done, is evident to casual observers. Women not 
 only glut and gormandize from morning till night, and in some parts of the 
 country, eat snuff, and drink wine, until perversion is the ruling feature of 
 their appetite, but they transmit the disposition to their children, and 
 compel them to cultivate it ; for no sooner are the children out of bed than 
 they find the indispensable " piece" in their hands, a faithful friend until 
 bed time ; and not unfrequently does it accompany them thither. And 
 the only antidote for the cries of a suckling babe, is its " dinner," which is 
 seasonable any hour in the twenty -four ; unless it cries too hard, when drugs, 
 ''soothing syrup," "paregoric," etc., become a plus quantity, in some 
 cases witli a piece of meat, or candy to suck ; for it wouldn't do to deny 
 it anything the mother's distorted sympathy supposes it would like. Not 
 unfrequently these plus quantities, added to the minus quantity, common 
 sense and nature's laws, produce a quantity minus its life. Then the 
 lamentations of the unhappy parents follow ; only finding consolation m 
 the perverted application of the scripture—" The Lord doeth all things 
 well." "He giveth and He taketh away." Instead of searching out the 
 cause, and learning wisdom from their folly, they persistently pursue the 
 same course, until similar results are again produced. 
 
 We sometimes think that no woman should have the care of a family, 
 who is unversed in the laws of being, or without the acquisition of self, 
 control. The women of one generation, u.n governed by a right knowledge 
 of the necessities of physical and spiritual being, and the avoidable causes 
 of disease; may commit sin from the effects of which three generations can- 
 not recover. 
 
SYMPTOMS OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 107 
 
 The prevalent custom on the part of most women of wearing 
 the hair twisted into a mass on the top or back of the head, 
 and the more modern and still more pernicious custom of 
 loading the head with false hair, or substances resembling it, 
 is a fruitful source of headache, and, indirectly, a cause of 
 dyspepsia. 
 
 Says a writer in the Science of Health : " And not hair only, 
 as if that were not bad enough, but hemp, jute, and coarse in- 
 ferior vegetable fibres, must be raised from their native clod, to 
 intermingle and be placed on a par with that most unrivalled 
 production of nature— the crowning glory of the human form. 
 As a matter of health, the subject assumes a more serious 
 aspect ; much more so, indeed, than many of our ladies have 
 any idea of. Perhaps the most prevalent complaint among 
 ladies at the present day is headache ; and we think that care- 
 ful investigation will bear us out in asserting that this trouble 
 has rather increased than diminished since the present style of 
 wearing the hair came in vogue, involving, as it does, the 
 loading of the head with such a cruantity of foreign material. " 
 
 Ridiculous and silly as is the fashionable head-toggery of 
 chignos, frizzles, pugs, etc., the ridiculousness merges into 
 the tragical when we consider the inevitably demoralizing 
 effects on both body and mind. 
 
 THE HORRORS. 
 
 I will conclude this " chapter of horrors " by copying one of 
 several cases which I have published. The case of Mr. Strong 
 was published in the Philadelphia Evening Star of October 8, 
 1872 : 
 
 Written for " The Evening Star." 
 
 The Horrors Depicted. — I do not mean remorse of con- 
 science, nor melancholy, nor "dumps," nor " blues," nor 
 4 4 hypo, " nor what the phrenologist would term ' ' hope small ;" 
 but a sense of unmitigated wretchedness disconnected with all 
 considerations of conduct or character, good, bad or indifferent, 
 and unattended with any outward manifestations of disease. 
 
 It may puzzle the reader to understand how a person can be 
 
io8 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 mentally horrified without being morally bad or physically sick. 
 He is sick, but the name of the disease is not found in the 
 nosology, nor is there any name or phrase in ancient Latin or 
 modern French that will apply to it. It can only be described. 
 
 The patient is in agony all the day, and afflicted with fright- 
 ful visions all the night. He is utterly miserable, yet cannot 
 tell why. He sees nothing but sources of sorrow in this life, 
 and imagines nothing but suffering in the next. Everything 
 around him, and all that you say or do, aggravate his misery. 
 He sheds no tears, his face is blank and expressionless, he can- 
 not laugh nor cry, and he seems to know nothing and care for 
 nothing except to feel bad. 
 
 But the rationale of this matter is very simple. It means 
 nothing more nor less than a torpid liver with an inactive skin. 
 The bile elements are retained in the blood because of tor- 
 pidity of that great excreting gland, the liver; they are not ex- 
 pelled through the skin in the form of 4 4 humors, " because of 
 obstruction of that emunctory. The consequences are the 
 blood becomes thick, viscid, clogs the internal viscera, and the 
 whole volume of circulating fluid is pressed from the circum- 
 ference of the body to the centre, and especially upon the brain. 
 Why should he not be horrified ? 
 
 Put your finger in a vise, or your body under half a tons 
 weight, and you will have some idea of the pain that can be 
 produced by pressure. The felon on the finger, the gout of 
 the toes, the rheumatism in the large joints, the boil, and the 
 carbuncle are intensely painful only because of the extreme 
 pressure consequent on accumulated blood. Let the blood re- 
 cede from the surface and accumulate in the brain, lungs, liver, 
 and other internal organs, and there will not be acute pain 
 locally, but distress generally. Instead of smarting or throb- 
 bing on the surface, there is aching and agony all through. The 
 sense of misery is too diffused to be imputed to any one organ, 
 hence the patient cannot tell where, how, nor why he is dis- 
 eased. 
 
 All persons who are distinguished as having a "fine flow of 
 animal spirits," have a free external circulation; the vessels 
 
SYMPTOMS OF DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 of the skin are well filled ; and so long as this condition is 
 maintained the "horrors" can never be experienced. They 
 may be sick, afflicted, or unfortunate, but the grief and depres- 
 sion will be temporary. It is impossible for such persons to set- 
 tle down in gloom and melancholy 
 
 I could mention the name of several persons in New York 
 and Philadelphia, who, after being in the horrors for months, 
 have recovered their usual good health and spirits, by a little 
 hygienic attention to the functions of the skin and liver. I am 
 at liberty to mention one, which is typical of all, that of a Mr. 
 Strong, produce merchant of Philadelphia, who was treated at 
 our " Hygeian Home." 
 
 The horrors in Mr. Strong's case were horrible in the ex- 
 treme. He would pace the room or walk the hall continually, 
 sighing and groaning as though some terrible calamity was 
 impending. Nothing that could be said would comfort him 
 in the least. He seemed perversely determined to be as mis- 
 erable as possible, and make others so to the extent of his 
 ability and opportunity. Yet, poor man, he could not help 
 it. The whole cause of all his trouble was within, but he 
 fancied it was everywhere else. His imagination was just as 
 morbid as his blood, and the very atmosphere was peopled 
 with Milton's "devils with devils damned," and vengeful 
 deities — the reflections of his own mental state. 
 
 In all of these cases we have only to purify the blood, restore 
 the circulation to the surface, and the crushing load within is 
 removed, the fiends and demons of the day depart, and the 
 ghosts and goblins of the night disappear. As soon as the 
 patient is "all right" within himself, the universe becomes all 
 right to him. 
 
 Mr. Strong, by means of plain simple food, tepid bathings, 
 and active manipulations to the skin, with no medicine of 
 any kind, soon began to come to himself, and then all the 
 world came to him. He is now attending to business as 
 usual. R. T. Trall, M.D. 
 
I IO 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 DYSPEPSIA AND THE CACHEXIES. 
 
 That nearly all those forms and manifestations of morbid 
 conditions which, in medical books, are termed cachexia?, or 
 4 'depraved habits of body," constituting the peculiar diatheses 
 called tubercular, scrofulous, scorbutic, hemorrhagic, pletho- 
 ric, dropsical, consumptive, and even entozoic, or verminous, 
 are primarily caused by derangements of the digestive processes, 
 is becoming more and more the opinion of pathologists. 
 
 In a late work on Pulmonary Consumption, by C. J. B. 
 Williams, M. D., F. R.S., of London, who is regarded as the 
 first pathologist in Great Britain, if not in Europe, the author 
 substantially affirms the doctrine I have all along advocated. 
 Dr. Williams is at the head of an extensive hospital and school 
 in London ; has had an experience of forty years, and his ob- 
 servations are based on a careful study of the data of one 
 thousand selected cases recorded in his note-book. The im- 
 portance to be attached to Dr. Williams' conclusions may be 
 inferred from the following notice of his work by the New York 
 Medical Review for January, 1873 : 
 
 "The author of this work needs no introduction to the medical world, 
 as his * Principles of Medicine ' is a standard work in both Europe and 
 America. As the student of Alison, Laennec, Andral, and Chomel, he 
 learned what those distinguished authors had to teach, both at the bedside 
 and at the dead-house. The knowledge thus acquired was, for the subse- 
 quent twenty years, constantly applied at St. George's and University 
 I lospitals, where he attended the wards almost daily, and always superin- 
 tended personally the post-mortems. In addition to this, Dr. Williams' 
 experience in diseases of the chest in private practice for the last forty 
 years, has not been exceeded by that of any other physician. 
 
 "With these facts before us, and the recognized ability of the author, 
 we are warranted in expecting an exhaustive and reliable resume of the 
 subject under consideration. 
 
 "The author's theory of the pathology of this disease is based on his 
 own observations, aided by the recent researches of Lionel Beale, Reck- 
 linghausen, Strieker, Cohnheim, Max Scheultzer, and others, in regard to 
 
DYSPEPSIA AND THE CACHEXIES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 the processes of the living plasma or formative material from which tex- 
 tures are produced." 
 
 Dr. Williams indicates his theory of the pathology of con- 
 sumption in the following words : 
 
 ' " It is not possible to convey in a few words the views on the nature of 
 Phthisis, to which I have been led by observation and reflection on the facts 
 and opinions of others as well as my own : but the popular terms decline 
 and consumption are the most significant which I can employ to represent 
 them. I believe Pulmonary Consumption to arise from a decline or defi- 
 ciency of vitality in the natural bioplasm or germinal matter, and this 
 deficiency manifests its effects not only in a general wasting or atiophy of 
 the whole body, but also in a peculiar degradation, chiefly in the lungs and 
 lymphathic system, of portions of this bioplasm into a sluggish low lived, yet 
 proliferating matter, which, instead of maintaining the nutrition and integ- 
 rity of the tissues (which is the natural office of the bioplasm), clogs 
 them and irritates them with a substance which is more or less prone to 
 decay, and eventually involves them also in its own disintegration and de- 
 struction. This degraded bioplasm, which I will call phthi nop/asm (wast- 
 ing or decaying forming material), may be thrown out locally, as a result 
 of inflammation ; or it may arise more spontaneously in divers points of the 
 bioplasm in its ordinary receptacles, the lymphatic glandular system ; and 
 then it commonly appears in the form of miliary tubercles, scattered through 
 the adenoid tissue of the lungs. 
 
 *' I would characterize all consumptive diseases heretofore classed under 
 the terms Tuberculous and Scrofulous, together with the products of low 
 and chronic inflammation, as instances of a lowered vitatity of the bioplasm; 
 and I would strongly insist on their being totally distinct, on the one hand, 
 from cancer and other malignant diseases, the characteristic of which is a 
 new kind of vitality, a new growth, perhaps parasitic, with new organic 
 elements, foreign to those of the tissues which they invade and destroy ; 
 and on the other hand, distinct also from total loss of vitality, death of the 
 bioplasm, which would speedily result in decomposition, gangrene, and 
 putrefaction ; to such a result phtlnnoplasms do occasionally lead, but it is 
 not a part of their common history. That this latter distinction is not 
 sufficiently observed by some German writers is evident from their applying 
 the term necrobiosis to caseation, which, although a process of decay from 
 lowered vitality, does not indicate the absolute death of every living part, 
 as in a slough or gangrene. It will be seen in the chapter on Fatty De- 
 generation (which thirty years ago was a special object of my study), that I 
 have traced a resemblance to vegetable life in its process and products ; 
 and, although ultimately destructive, it is the most gentle step towards the 
 death of the tissues. Nay, various proofs will be adduced that fatty trans- 
 
112 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 formation is often a salutary process, assisting materially in the removal of 
 phthinoplasm and other superfluous products of inflammation. " 
 
 "The great indication lu sustain the vitality and sufficiency of the bio- 
 plasm, by all available means, medicinal, regiminal, and climatic, will be 
 the first suggestion for the prevention and treatment of consumptive dis- 
 eases. A second, equally obvious, will be the avoidance of all influences 
 which may injure the bioplasm ; generally, by deleterious action on the 
 whole body ; or locally, by exciting low inflammation in the lungs or other 
 organs. A third indication, more difficult than the others in its fulfilment, 
 is to counteract the injurious effects of phthinoplasms alread" formed, and 
 to promote their quiescence or removal." 
 
 DYSPEPSIA AND WORMS. 
 
 All of the varieties of entozoa which infest the alimentary 
 canal, would have no existence there, were it not for the pro- 
 ducts of indigestion on which they feed. Because they are 
 scavengers, some physicians, who were poor physiologists, have 
 regarded them as wholesome and necessary to consume the 
 offal, etc. But, in a healthy state of the digestive organs, there 
 would be no offal for them to scavengerize. The effete matters 
 (excretions) would be expelled as often as necessary, and not 
 allowed to accumulate so as to afford shelter and sustenance 
 for these troublesome pests. 
 
 Children whose dietary consists largely of greasy foods, 
 sugar, and fine flour, always have constipated bowels, and 
 are always affected with worms. The immediate cause of all 
 such vermin as effect a permanent lodgment in the alimentary 
 canal is alimentary uncleanliness. And uncleanliness in our 
 dwellings and surroundings is the sole cause of all the noxious 
 insects or animalculae which annoy us and destroy our fruits and 
 vegetables, as well as the cause of all contagious diseases — 
 small-pox, measles, scarlatina, w r hooping-cough, mumps, 
 influenza, etc., of human beings, and glanders, murrain, rin- 
 derpert, epizooty, gapes, staggers, etc., of domestic animals. 
 
 The "measly " livers of stall-fattened and sty-fattened cattle 
 and hogs, is nothing more nor less than an insect, not unlike 
 the louse or crab, which burrows in the substance of the liver, 
 or lodges in some portion of the intestinal tube. Its form and 
 shape conform to the locality in which it develops and propa- 
 
DYSPEPSIA AND THE CACHEXIES. 
 
 "3 
 
 gates its kind. In the bowels it elongates into the tape-worm. 
 It often makes its way into Other glands, and into the areolar 
 and muscular tissues of animals, especially of the hog ; and is 
 so tenacious of life that ordinary boiling does not destroy it. 
 In the Crimea, during the late Turko-Russian war, the British 
 soldiers became so frequently affected with tape-worms that 
 they finally traced it to pork rations, and refused to partake of 
 them. 
 
 Raw sugars are another common source of " measles" in 
 the glands and bowels. The sugar insect (which is the cause 
 of that tormenting skin affection known as " grocer's itch), is 
 found in nearly all of the brown sugars of commerce. More 
 than one hundred thousand have been found in a single pound 
 of "merchantable ' Muscovado sugar. 
 
 A late writer in an agricultural journal published at Memphis, 
 Tenn., ("Philips' Southern Farmer,") attributes worms in 
 colts to indigestion. He says : " It is the opinion of many 
 veterinarians that worms in colts are usually connected with 
 indigestion ; that is, they produce ill-health when the digestive 
 organs are disordered.'' They produce ill-health whenever 
 present. Indigestion causes their presence, and then their 
 presence aggravates the indigestion. 
 
 A writer in a late number of the London Field states that the 
 gape worm among chickens is unusually prevalent. If he will 
 examine into the sanitary conditions around those wormy 
 chickens, he will find uncleanliness correspondingly prevalent. 
 
 We have the authority of Scripture that all "evil beasts shall 
 cease out of the land" when the people obey "the ways of the 
 Lord," which means, I suppose, when they keep themselves 
 and their surroundings clean, and till the earth on hygienic 
 principles. 
 
114 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 PRINCIPLES OE TREATMENT. 
 
 There are two methods of treating dyspeptics ; one aims to 
 cure the disease ; the other endeavors to cure the patient. 
 All drug medical systems profess to cure diseases ; and they 
 can do it, whatever becomes of the patient. The Hygienic 
 medical system is based on the fundamental premise that 
 disease should vol be cured ; but that its causes should be remov- 
 ed, to the end that the patient may recover health. All drug 
 systems teach that disease is an entity or substance ; a some- 
 thing at war with vitality which should be suppressed, opposed, 
 counteracted, subdued, expelled, killed, or cured ; hence it is 
 opposed with all of the missiles of the drug shop. The Hygi- 
 enic system teaches that disease is a remedial effort — a struggle 
 of the vital powers to purify the system and recover the normal 
 state. This effort should be aided, directed and regulated, if 
 need be, but never suppressed. And this can always be better 
 accomplished without medicines than with them. 
 
 Few persons are aware how many of their ailments, of which 
 they suffer for years, if not for life, are attributable to the med- 
 icines which so promptly relieved them of some trivial pain or 
 slight indisposition. Many of the infirmities and diseases of 
 youth and manhood can be traced to the remedies which cured 
 their ailments of infancy and childhood. 
 
 Professor E. R. Peaslee, M. D., of New York, said to his 
 medical class a few years ago: "The administration of 
 powerful medicines is the most fruitful cause of derangements 
 of the digestion." 
 
 Professor Alonzo Clark, M. D., of the New York College 
 of Physicians and Surgeons, said, in a lecture to the medical 
 class, not long since : "All of our curative agents are poisons, 
 and, as a consequence, every dose diminishes the vitality of the 
 patient. " 
 
PRINCIPLES OF TREATMENT. 
 
 And Professor John C. Draper, M. D. , says: " Vitality 
 once lost can never be regained." 
 
 Authorities agai?isi drug remedies could be quoted from the 
 highest authorities of the medical profession to any extent. 
 But I will conclude with as many, from the same source, in 
 favor of Hygienic medication. 
 
 " The same uncertainty exists in medicine that the law is so justly noted 
 for. We do not know whether our patients recover because we give medi- 
 cine, or because nature cures them. Perhaps bread pills would cure as 
 many as medicine." Prof. J. VV. Carson, M.D. 
 
 " The older physicians grow the more skeptical they become of the vir 
 tues of medicine, and the more they are disposed to trust to the powers of 
 nature." Prof. Alex. H. Stevens, M.D. 
 
 " 1 wish the Materia Medica was in Guinea, and that you would study 
 Materia Aliuieniaria. You are taught learnedly about Materia Medica, 
 and but little about diet. We will have less of doctors when people eat to 
 live. Prof. Willard Parker, M.D. 
 
 The rational treatment of dyspepsia, in all its states, stages, 
 forms and complications, consists in supplying the condition 
 of health. This is the way to "aid and assist nature" prop- 
 erly and effectually. Instead of "curing one disease by pro- 
 ducing another," we should aim to cure the patient in such a 
 manner as to leave him sound and whole. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 POOD. 
 
 A correct dietary should be placed at the head of all of our 
 therapeutic measures ; for without this all other appliances may 
 fail, and certainly will fail to afford more than temporary ben- 
 efit. And all food should be plain, simple, of a consistence 
 to insure proper mastication, and of but few articles at a single 
 meal. With these general rules kept in view, a good Hygienic 
 cook can furnish as great a variety of dishes as any who " eats 
 to live " can desire. 
 
 Bread is of the first importance. But, unfortunately, there 
 
ii6 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 is no wholesome bread in the market. The public taste and 
 judgment are so perverted that a good article could find no 
 purchasers at the provision stores, and those who would have it 
 must make it, or cause it to be made. 
 
 Fine flour and yeast are things to be eschewed. Wholesome 
 bread can contain only two ingredients — unbolted meal and 
 water. Atmospheric air is the only " rising " that is needed or 
 that should be tolerated. Yeast fermentation is a rotting process, 
 and acids and alkalies are pernicious because of the saline mat- 
 ters which result from their combination. Wheat-meal is more 
 generally preferred. The following recipe will make perfect 
 bread, if properly manipulated. 
 
 "Mix unbolted wheat meal (freshly ground) with pure cold water, to 
 make a stiff dough ; knead the dough thoroughly, working in as much 
 meal as possible ; cut into small pieces and bake in a quick oven. It wi! 
 bake quicker and keep longer if made into rolls a little larger than the 
 finger ; or into cakes one half or three fourths of an inch in thickness, t\v«» 
 inches wide, and three inches long. This bread may be dried as hard as a 
 brick, and kept sweet and good for weeks. You have only to dip it ni 
 water a minute, and let it stand five minutes, to have as tender, wholesome 
 and delicious bread as need be eaten." 
 
 Hot water, instead of cold, is preferred by some ; and on my 
 " Hygeian Home " table we have both kinds. This has a 
 somewhat firmer crust, a softer body and sweeter taste, but will 
 not keep so long as that made with cold water. 
 
 An expert bread-maker can also make very light loaf bread 
 with either cold or hot water and meal. I have, at this writ- 
 ing, bread within reach, made one year ago, which is both 
 sweet, delicious, and wholesome. It was made in small rolls, 
 about as large and long as my middle finger, then dried in the 
 sun, or before a stove. I do not know why it would not re- 
 main unchanged, if kept dry, for a thousand years. This is 
 the best possible manner of preparing bread for long journeys, 
 or for economy of room and expense. One pound of it has 
 more real nutriment than a ton of that spurious stimulant 
 known as " Liebig's Extract of Meat/' I have carried it to 
 England, kept it four weeks in that humid climate, and found 
 it good and sweet after returning. 
 
FOOD. 
 
 117 
 
 Some years ago I offered a premium of one hundred dollars 
 for the best bread. More than one hundred specimens were 
 in competition, and a committee, chosen for the purpose, made 
 the award to the following : 
 
 " Mix unbolted meal of any grain preferred, or of a mixture of two or 
 more kinds in any proportions which may be preferred, with pure water, 
 either cold or hot. If cold water is employed, the meal and water should 
 be mixed to the consistency of thick batter ; then beaten or stirred a little 
 with a spoon or ladle to incorporate more atmospheric air ; after which* 
 more meal is to be added, until the mass becomes as stiff a dough as can 
 well be kneaded. Knead the dough a few minutes (and the more the dough 
 is kneaded, the more brittle and tender the bread will be), cut into pieces 
 or cakes half an inch or three-quarters of an inch in thickness, and about 
 two inches in diameter, and bake in a quick oven — as hot as possible with- 
 out burning the crust, which must be carefully guarded against. It is 
 better to moderate the heat of the oven a little after three or five minutes. 
 
 If hot water is used, it should be boiling hot, and the meal and water 
 stirred together very quickly with a strong spoon to the consistency ot 
 dough, not quite so stiff as that for ordinary loaf bread made of fine flour. 
 It is then to be cut into pieces or cakes, and baked as above. Either form 
 of bread may be made mto larger or smaller cakes, or into loaves of any 
 convenient size to bake, and baked in a gas, wood, coal, or kerosene stove, 
 or in an oven ; and the crust be rendered as soft and tender as may be 
 desired, by enveloping the cakes or loaves a short time in wet cloths 
 immediately on being taken from the oven. The small cakes, when made 
 with hot water, will soon become as tender as even the toothless can desire, 
 by being kept in a covered earthen crock ; or they may be rendered as 
 hard and solid as the soundest teeth can require, by leaving them un- 
 covered and in a dry place." 
 
 Excellent and wholesome fruit-cake can be made by the 
 addition of dates, raisins, figs, or other sweet fruits. 
 
 I protest against an article of bread, called ' ■ gems," 
 which are made in some families, and are constantly on the 
 table of some pretended "Water-cures" or "Hygienic Insti- 
 tutes." The pans in which they are cooked are greased, so 
 that the sham is fried rather than baked ; the crust is usually 
 very hard or burned, and the inside soft and mushy. Such 
 stuff is eminently dyspepsia-producing. 
 
 Rye meal, corn meal, rye-and-corn, and oatmeal bread or 
 cake may be made in the same manner as that of wheat-meal. 
 
n8 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 Wholesome pastry can be made of meal and fruits of any 
 kind ; if the fruits are too acid to suit the taste, they can be 
 modified with more or less fruit of a sweeter kind, as dates, 
 raisins, figs, etc. By placing a damp cloth over the crust for 
 a short time after it is taken from the oven the crust will be as 
 tender as the feeblest teeth require. A dry cloth will render it 
 as tender as most persons care for. 
 
 Wheaten grits, hominy, samp, oatmeal, mush, boiled rice, 
 etc., may be used occasionally as a part of the meal ; but hard 
 bread, a green apple, or something similar, should always be 
 eaten with them to insure mastication. 
 
 Soups and gruels are permissible also occasionally, with the 
 same conditions. Of the soups for dyspeptics none is better 
 nor more generally relished than the potato. Beans, split-peas, 
 rice, tomato, and barley, are among the admissible articles for 
 soups. 
 
 Of the fruits and vegetables in our markets, but few are ob- 
 jectionable ; but only one or two kinds should be taken at one 
 meal. Those who are troubled with flatulence, colic, spitting 
 up the food, or nausea after meals, should not take fruit and 
 vegetables at the same meal. For such persons bread and 
 fruit, and perhaps mush, for breakfast, and bread and vegeta- 
 bles for dinner, is the better plan. 
 
 Very sour fruits and acid vegetables, as cranberries, lemons, 
 onions, radishes, celery, &c, had better be dispensed with. 
 There are plenty of better things. 
 
 Of animal foods little need be said. I prefer an exclusively 
 vegetarian diet when it can be properly prepared. But with 
 many persons animal food is a necessity in the sense of being 
 the lesser evil. At an ordinary hotel or boarding-house the 
 bread-food is all of the commercial kind, and lean flesh-meat 
 is the better article. But pork, shell-fish, fat, and all fried 
 dishes should be abstained from. Lean beef and mutton are 
 the best, or least objectionable kinds of flesh-meat. 
 
 Eggs are not so good as the better kinds of flesh-meat, nor 
 so bad as many other kinds. Flesh food should never be 
 
FOOD. 
 
 II 9 
 
 cooked in any other manner that broiling or boiling ; and eggs 
 should always be soft-boiled. 
 
 Condiments and seasonings of all kinds can be disposed of 
 in few words — the less the better. Those who are accustomed to 
 high-seasonings will recover a more normal taste and soon learn 
 to relish very plain cooking, by gradually reducing the quan- 
 tity. I have known many persons learn to like all dishes bet- 
 ter without sugar than with it in a few weeks, after having used 
 it excessively for years. And I could make the same remark 
 with regard to vinegar, salt and butter. None of these things 
 are foods, in the proper sense of the word, the medical pro- 
 fession to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 Another important advantage of diminishing the thirst-pro- 
 voking seasonings is, little or no desire for drink at meals. 
 
 Much experience and observation have convinced me that 
 the excessive use of sugar in this country is a prolific source of 
 indigestion, constipation, * ' biliousness " and erysipelatous erup- 
 tions. For fifteen years I allowed a part of my patients to use 
 sugar moderately. For ten years past I have had no sugar on 
 their table ; and the results of the change are, I hear but little 
 of the heartburn, acidity, fetid breath, and "stomatitis" of 
 which my patients formerly complained so much. 
 
 At a meeting of the Polytechnic branch of the American 
 Institute, at Cooper Union, New York, Professor J. V. C. 
 Smith, M.D., in a lecture on milk, stated that the liver was a 
 sugar-making organ ; and he argued that, because the liver 
 performed a 4 'glycogenic" function, children should be allow- 
 ed to eat sugar freely — also adults. I do not see how the con- 
 clusion is legitimate from the premises. If it is the business 
 of the liver to make sugar, let the liver do it. The liver makes 
 bile. Would Professor Smith recommend us to take bile as 
 food? 
 
V 
 
 1 20 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 DRINK. 
 
 Water-drinking between meals should be according to thirst. 
 It is a mistake to load a weak stomach with cold water on the 
 theory that it is a tonic. Food and drink have, fortunately, 
 no medicinal properties, and should never be taken for any 
 purpose but to supply necessary material for use. As a habit 
 it is well to take a tumbler, or part of one, of pure soft water, 
 after dressing in the morning, and let the drink be regulated 
 by the thirst at all other times. As I have explained in the 
 preceding part of this work, it is not compatible with perfect 
 digestion to drink at all at meals. Those who use seasonings, 
 and those who are thirsty while eating, should take as little as 
 may be consistent with comfort. Small sips will often allay 
 thirst as well as larger draughts and be much better for the 
 stomach. Very cold water is certainly unhygienic at meals, 
 and especially bad for dyspeptics. Some medical authors, and 
 among them Dr. G. B. Wood (" Wood's Practice of Medicine") 
 recommend ice-cream after meals as a tonic. Few things could 
 be worse. Hot coffee or tea would be the lesser evil. I have 
 known many patients who were subject to inflammation and 
 hemorrhage, suffer severely and invariably of bleeding piles 
 soon after eating ice-cream, nor do I regard the iced- water, or 
 bits of ice which are so generally administered to cholera pa- 
 tients, as either proper or beneficial. The reason that they 
 must be pernicious is sufficiently obvious to one who sees "the 
 pathology of the disease" through unprejudiced spectacles. 
 The cold water or ice in the stomach determines the blood from 
 the surface of the body to the central organs, aggravating the 
 internal congestion, which is the chief point and only danger 
 in the case. So with dyspeptics whose internal viscera are al- 
 ways in a greater or less degree of congestion, ice-cream or 
 large draughts of cold water, not only interfere with the process 
 of digestion, but determine the blood from the surface, where 
 
DRINK. 
 
 121 
 
 it is already deficient, to the central organs where it is already 
 in excess. 
 
 The dyspeptic should avoid hard water as he would hard 
 drugs, for all the hard waters on the earth are only drugs in 
 solution. All of the mineral and medicinal springs, from 
 Saratoga to White Sulphur, and from Cheltenham to Vichy, 
 are only modifications of the oceans, the great reservoirs of all 
 the impurities that water can dissolve. No one thinks of drink- 
 ing them when well, nor would any one be content to have his 
 food cooked in them, But when sick, presto, the more earthy, 
 saline, alkaline, and mineral ingredients they contain, the 
 more they are in demand ! Such is fashion. 
 
 I have long been convinced that a better method for convert- 
 ing grain into meal or flour ;han by grinding between stones, 
 was among the desiderata of a hygienic mode of life. The 
 ordinary process of grinding inevitably impregnates the meal or 
 flour with more or less pulverized stone. The quantity may 
 be infinitesimally small in a single loaf of bread, nevertheless 
 some chance particle not reduced to impalpable powder may 
 be transferred to the body of the one who partakes of the loaf, 
 lodge in the joints, liver, kidney, or bladder, and become the 
 nucleus of concretions which occasion painful ox fatal diseases. 
 
 The hygienic method of preparing meal (and flour should 
 not be prepared at all) is by cutting or pounding, as was done 
 before flouring mills were invented. And the following para- 
 graph, which I copy from an exchange paper, indicates that the 
 right idea has already become embodied in machinery : 
 
 " Flour Without Millstones. — A machine for making flour without 
 the use of millstones, has just been started in England. The grain is crushed 
 by one thousand little trip hammers attached to the proper machinery to 
 produce the results desired. The new machinery is very cheap and does up 
 its work in a scientific manner. The flour produced is said to be far su- 
 perior to that obtained by grinding. A pounding mill costing $1,000 will 
 produce as much flour every day as an old fashioned mill, costing $5,000. 
 The new mill is very simple. When a hammer is out of order you 'can re- 
 place the same for a few cents. For four thousand years millers have pro- 
 duced flour by grinding the grain with stones. The new idea gives a new 
 departure. What results it will produce 1. 'his country remain to be seen." 
 
i22 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 In those complications of indigestion indicated by torpid 
 liver, gall-stones, intestinal concretions, albuminaria, or 
 ' Wright's disease of the kidneys/' mineral and hard waters of 
 all kinds are extremely pernicious. An 1 they are scarcely less 
 so in rheumatic and gouty affections, gravel, catarrh of the 
 bladder or uterus, and duodenitis. 
 
 There is no beverage in the universe except water, and there 
 is but one rule for its quality — the purer the better. Those who 
 reside where all the water of the streams, springs, and wells is 
 hard, have only the alternatives of getting their supply of fluids 
 from juices, fruits and vegetables, catch rain water, obtain pure 
 water by distillation, or be sick. Few persons imagine the 
 ' ' wear and tear " that is constantly disorganizing their structures, 
 and bringing them prematurely to the grave, in consequence of 
 drinking hard water. The foreign particles are everywhere 
 occasioning a wasteful friction of the vital machinery, deranging 
 the blood-corpuscles, damaging the secretions, and destroying 
 the molecules of the tissues. If the railroad companies of the 
 world, instead of keeping all the machinery of the locomotives 
 and rolling stock well oiled, so as to obviate friction to the 
 greatest possible extent, should apply sea-water, or Congress 
 water, or the hard water of lime-stone regions, to the machinery, 
 not one of the roads could pay running expenses ; the iron 
 would rust, the wood work be strained, the joints would break, 
 and all would go to ruin speedily. The principle that machi- 
 nery will work long and well in inverse ratio to the friction, is 
 as applicable to vital as it is to mechanical organisms. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 EXERCISE. 
 
 Next in importance to a proper dietetical regimen, if not 
 equally important, is systematic exercise. Those dyspeptics 
 who are so fortunate as to have some healthful vocation, may 
 need no special instruction on this subject, except in relation 
 to special exercises for special morbid conditions, 
 
EXERCISE. 
 
 123 
 
 One of these conditions, and probably the most prevalent 
 one, and certainly the one most generally overlooked or un- 
 thought of by medical men, is an inactive state of the abdomi- 
 nal muscles. With all sedentary persons this is one of the 
 essential matters to be attended to in the treatment. As has 
 been already explained, no one can have a normal action of the 
 bowels unless the muscles which constitute the walls of the ab- 
 domen co-operate with the peristaltic action of the intestinal 
 tube. Dyspeptics may exercise in vain, in a hundred ways, 
 unless their muscles are brought into action and invigorated. 
 And there is one method of exercising these torpid muscles 
 which all dyspeptics can resort to with advantage without the 
 aid of doctors or machinery, and which is one of the best 
 " movement cures" ever invented. I mean, slapping the 
 abdominal muscles with the flat hand. The slapping should 
 be very gentle at first, so as to cause no pain, and gradually 
 increased in force, as the muscles become active and elastic. 
 Dyspeptics who are so tender over the liver or stomach that the 
 weight of ones hand is painful, can in a few weeks or months, 
 by persevering slapping, endure a blow that would do credit to 
 a pugilist without inconvenience or injury. The exercise may 
 be advantageously varied with rubbing and kneading ; and, 
 after a while, when the tenderness is overcome, by pounding 
 with the fist, the rule of beginning gently and gradually increas- 
 ing the force being observed. The muscles of the loins and 
 around the small of the back should also be exercised in the 
 same way, which can easily be done with the back of the hand. 
 This simple exercise alone has effected some " astonishing 
 cures" and is better for feeble invalids than all the appliances 
 of a regular gymnasium. Very feeble dyspeptics should have 
 these exercises passively, that is, made by an attendant. 
 
 Some forty years ago, a Mr. Halstead, of New York, effected 
 some wonderful cures of feeble and emaciated dyspeptics, 
 whose physicians had given them over to death, by a process 
 of "kneading the bowels." He afterwards invented an exer- 
 cising chair to accomplish the same result. But the kneading, 
 
124 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 pounding, and slapping are much better than the chair, besides 
 being more economical and always available. 
 
 The following case, which occurred just forty years ago, 
 illustrates the principle we are considering : Two of my 
 schoolmates, eighteen and twenty-one years of age respectively, 
 declined in health. The family physician called their ailment 
 dyspepsia, and attended them one year. They grew no bet- 
 ter. Then Thomsonian, root and Indian doctors, far and near, 
 tried their steaming and compounds in vain. The young men 
 continued to decline. Both were extremely emaciated and the 
 younger was unable to sit up. The elder brother suffered ex- 
 crutiatingly at times of colic, and, becoming convinced that he 
 could not recover, in one of his unendurable paroxysms, com- 
 mitted suicide by cutting his throat. A few days after this 
 tragedy Mr. Halsted was heard of. A messenger was posted 
 to New York, who paid a fee of $100; took a solemn oath 
 not to disclose the secret, nor to apply it to any person but this 
 individual patient, the younger brother. All medicine was 
 discontinued ; the regimen was the same, and the manipula- 
 tions were commenced. In a couple of weeks the skeleton- 
 patient was able to sit up. In a couple of months he was 
 walking about. In one year he was in the enjoyment of good 
 health. He is at this writing a Christian minister. 
 
 Another case of recent date is worth relating, as showing the 
 benefit and the necessity for restoring the action of the abdom- 
 inal muscles in desperate cases of dyspepsia. A merchant of 
 Western New York visiting New York City on business, called 
 on me for advice. He was one of the most miserable speci- 
 mens of this miserable class of invalids that I ever saw — ema- i 
 ciated, the abdomen gaunt, and the muscles rigid, bowels 
 torpid, and troubled with flatulence continually and colic 
 frequently. All that he could eat without unendurable pain in 
 the stomach was a small slice of stale bread and a bit of lean 
 meat, and this meagre allowance usually occasioned so much 
 gastric irritation that he had acquired the habit of taking a 
 teaspoonful of brandy after each meal. He suffered constantly 
 of hunger and could sleep very little. Like the majority of 
 
EXERCISE. 
 
 I2 5 
 
 such persons, he was in the pursuit of some nostrum or remedy 
 that would impart to him health, while he continued to live and 
 act in disobedience to all the conditions of health. He had 
 destroyed his health in the eager pursuit of riches, and while 
 intelligent in the ways and means by which property could be 
 acquired, he was totally ignorant of nearly all the ways and 
 means by which his own vital organs could be preserved. In 
 ruining his health he had accumulated a hundred thousand 
 dollars, and he made the remark, incidentally, that if he could 
 recover his health at once he would be willing to give a thou- 
 sand dollars ! 
 
 I explained to him the nature of his malady, and called 
 attention to his torpid and rigid abdominal muscles as the chief 
 feature of his case. As my Hygeio-Therapeutic College was 
 then in session, and as it happened to be one of the evenings 
 for exercises, I invited him to the lecture hall. Some of the 
 students were dancing the Schottische, and I explained to him 
 how that method of " tripping the light fantastic toe" was 
 admirably calculated to bring into action the torpid muscles of 
 dyspeptics affected as he was. Other exercises might be equally 
 useful, but this was one exactly adapted to his particular con- 
 dition. He watched the terpsichorean performance with as 
 much interest, probably, as he had often regarded the move- 
 ments in fancy stocks. One year afterwards he called on me 
 again. He was in fair health. He had learned the steps, and 
 had danced the dyspepsia all away. 
 
 Walking, horseback-riding, and rowing, are among the use- 
 ful exercises for dyspeptics, but are no better than sawing wood, 
 working in the garden, washing and ironing, only as they may 
 be more amusing to the patient. But the rule here, as in danc- 
 ing, or gymnastics of any kind, is to commence very mode- 
 rately, and be regular and systematic. It is on account of their 
 being more orderly and better systematized that the health-lift, 
 dumb-bells, Indian clubs, and various calisthenic exercises are 
 so frequently preferable. Many useful instructions in manual 
 exercises of all kinds may be found in my work entitled, "The 
 Illustrated Family Gymnasium." 
 
126 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 Invalids who undertake to regulate their own exercises al- 
 most invariably overdo at first. Wishing to " hurry up the 
 cure," they strain some part of the muscular system and actu- 
 ally retard it. " Make haste slowly/' is the safe rule. Those 
 who are subject to prolapsion of the lower portion of the bowel, 
 or to bleeding piles, can scarcely be too moderate for a month 
 or so in every new kind of exercise which they resort to. The 
 reason is, that as the vigor and elasticity of some sets of mus- 
 cles are much weaker than others, and the whole muscular sys- 
 tem unbalanced, it takes time, practice, and much patience to 
 get them all acting harmoniously. Some persons with weak 
 digestive organs and enfeebled respiratory apparatus, have com- 
 paratively strong limbs. They can walk miles without great 
 fatigue of the muscles of locomotion ; while a smart run of 
 thirty feet, or a quick step up a flight of stairs, makes the heart 
 flutter and the breathing laborious. Such invalids need very 
 little of the walking but much of various other exercises. They 
 should practice going up and down stairs and over uneven 
 surfaces frequently, always keeping the mouth shut, and never 
 exercising with sufficient violence to feel the necessity of open- 
 ing the mouth. And this practice should be persevered in until 
 they can go up two flights of stairs on the " double-quick '* 
 without occasioning shortness of breath or palpitation. An 
 excellent "movement-cure" process, and one available to every 
 invalid who can walk, is to strike the abdominal muscles with 
 the flat hand, and, after a little, with both hands, while walk- 
 ing ; the blows to be exactly synchronous with the contact of 
 the sole of the foot with the ground or floor, the glottis to be 
 closed and the breath held at the moment the blow and step 
 are made. This compound gymnastic exercise gives a remark- 
 able spring to the muscles of the abdominal walls, as any one 
 can ascertain by making the experiment properly. This move- 
 ment can be practiced with still greater effect while walking up 
 and down stairs. 
 
 Those who have very weak lungs, or who are predisposed to 
 consumption, should resort chiefly to such exercises as are 
 especially calculated to inflate the lungs and expand the chest, 
 
BATHING. 
 
 127 
 
 Whatever else they do or omit to do, there is no hope against 
 final consumption except in keeping the lungs well filled with 
 atmospheric air. Pulling against weights, tossing and catch- 
 ing ball, light dumb-bells, wands, etc., are adapted to their 
 purpose. One of the best exercises without the aid of artificial 
 machinery is this : Stand erect, with the arms perpendicular ; 
 raise the hands slowly, keeping the arms extended till they meet 
 palm to palm over the head ; then let them descend as slowly 
 till they meet, palm to palm, behind the back, or in front, 
 alternating these positions. The arms should go up-and-down 
 to correspond with the respirations — fifteen to twenty per min- 
 ute. Inhalation should take place as the arms ascend, and 
 expiration as they descend. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 BATHING. 
 
 The majority of dyspeptics require very little ' ' water-treat- 
 ment." Before their cases come under the cognizance of the 
 physician, their circulation is low and nerves enfeebled. In 
 nine of every ten of these cases a proper dietary, or a judicious 
 plan of exercise, is vastly more important than bathing, pro- 
 vided any part of the remedial plan must be neglected. Yet 
 bathing is in itself important, and in some cases will ensure 
 success, when without it all other measures might fail. In the 
 early days of "Hydropathy," packs, plunges, douches, and 
 umschlags were overdone, on the false theory that disease was 
 an entity, or a something at war with vitality, which must be 
 expelled or cast out by a ' * crisis. " And even in these days of 
 " Hygienic " institutions and Hygeian " Homes," wet-girdles, 
 chest-wrappers, and head-caps are too much employed on the 
 absurd notion of drawing out disease, or purifying the blood 
 through an artificial depurating surface. "Do thyself no 
 harm " is the first principle and the universal rule for managing 
 the bathing part of the treatment. 
 
128 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 Not many years ago prolonged and very cold hip-baths — 
 one to two hours, temperature 50 degrees or below, were fre- 
 quently prescribed as ''tonic/' "derivative," or " sedative 
 processes, on the erroneous supposition that water was in some 
 sense a substitute for medicine. Such "heroic " management 
 never failed to exhaust vital power and aggravate the malady, 
 when it did not change it to some new form or worse compli- 
 cation. 
 
 Within a few years past, the invalid public, always running 
 to extremes in everything, have been blundering just as absurdly 
 the other way ; and very hot treatment — Turkish, Russian, 
 etc., baths, have become the prevailing mania. They are 
 more agreeable at first, but more debilitating in the end than 
 were the extremely cold water processes. I have known many 
 feeble dyspeptics killed by them, and several who were in the 
 incipient stages of consumption hurried rapidly to their graves 
 by them. 
 
 The limits of this work will not permit me to explain in de- 
 tail all the bathing processes, nor even mention all of their 
 applications to all forms and conditions of ill-health, but I must 
 refer those who desire fuller information on the subject to my 
 small work, "The Bath ; its Uses," etc. 
 
 It is impossible to give, in a work of this kind, anything more 
 than a plan or set of rules to regulate the water-treatment, for 
 the reason that the conditions of the patients are so different ; 
 what is best for one may be worst for another ; one patient may 
 be benefited by some form of bath once or twice a day, while 
 another would be injured by any bath applied more frequently 
 than once or twice a week. 
 
 The following summary of such processes as can be man- 
 aged in home-treatment, and such rules as all should observe, 
 will serve as a chart or guide for the dyspeptic : 
 
 Wet Sheet Packing. — On a bed, or matress, two or three comfortable? 
 or bedquilts are spread ; over them a pair of flannel blankets ; and, lastly, 
 a wet sheet (rather coarse linen is best) wrung out lightly. The patient, 
 undressed, lies down flat on the back, and is quickly enveloped in the sheet, 
 blankets, and other bedding. The head must be well raised with pillows, 
 
BATHING. 
 
 129 
 
 and care must be taken to have the feet well wrapped. If the feet do not 
 warm with the rest of the body, a jug of hot water should be applied ; and 
 if there is a tendency to headache, several folds of a cold, wet cloth, should 
 be laid over the forehead. The usual time for remaining in the pack is 
 from forty to sixty minutes. It may be followed by the plunge, half-bath, 
 rubbing wet -sheet, or towel-wash, according to circumstances. 
 
 Half-Pack. — This is the same as the preceding, with the exception that 
 the neck and extremities are not covered by the wet sheet, which is applied 
 merely to the trunk of the body, from the arm-pits to the hips. 
 
 Half-Bath. — An oval or oblong tub is most convenient, though any 
 vessel allowing a patient to sit down with the legs extended will answer. 
 The water should cover the lower extremities and about half the abdomen. 
 While in the bath the patient, if able, should rub the lower extremities while 
 the attendant rubs the chest, back, and abdomen. 
 
 Hip or Sitz Bath. — Any small-sized wash-tub will do for this, although 
 tubs constructed with a straight back, and raised four or five inches from the 
 floor, are mucli the most agreeable. The water should just cover the hips 
 and the lower part of the abdomen. A blanket should be thrown over the 
 patient, who will find it also useful to rub or knead the abdomen with the 
 hand or fingers during the bath. 
 
 Foot-Bath. — Any small vessel, as a pail, will answer. Usually the 
 water should be about ankle deep. During the bath, the feet should be 
 kept in gentle motion. Walking foot-baths are excellent in warm weather, 
 where a cool stream can be found. The hot -and cold foot bath consists in 
 holding the feet in water as warm as can well be borne— five, ten, or fifteen 
 minutes — then dipping them a moment in cool or cold water, and wiping 
 dry. 
 
 Rubbing Wet-Sheet.— If the sheet is dripping wet, the patient stands 
 in the tub ; if wrung so as not to drip, it may be used on a carpet, or in 
 any place. The sheet is thrown around the body, which it envelops below 
 >ie neck ; the attendant rubs the body over the sheet (not with it), the 
 patient exercising himself at the same time by rubbing in front. 
 
 Pail-Douche. — This means simply pouring water over the sheet and 
 shoulders from a pail. 
 
 Stream-Douche.- -A stream of water may be applied to the part or 
 parts affected, by pouring from a pitcher or other convenient vessel, held 
 as high as possible ; or a barrel or keg may be elevated for the purpose, 
 having a tub of any desired size. The power will be proportional to the 
 a nount of water in the reservoir. 
 
 Towel or Sponge-Bath.— Rubbing the whole surface with a coarse, 
 
13° 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 wet towel or sponge, followed by a dry sheet or towel, constitutes this pro- 
 cess. 
 
 The Wet Girdle. — Three or four yards of crash toweling make a good 
 one. One-half of it is wet and applied around the abdomen, followed by 
 the dry half to cover it. It should be wetted as often as it becomes dry. 
 
 The Chest -Wrapper. — This is made of crash, to fit the trunk like an 
 under-shirt, from the neck to the lower ribs ; it is applied as wet as possible 
 without dripping, and covered by a similar dry wrapper, made of Canton or 
 light woolen flannel. It requires renewing two or three times a day . 
 
 The Sweating-Pack. — To produce perspiration the patient is packed in 
 the flannel blanket or other bedding, as mentioned in the Wet-Sheet Pack, 
 omitting the wet sheet. Some perspire in less than an hour ; others re- 
 quire several hours. This is the severest of water-cure processes, ar 
 in fact, is very seldom called for. 
 
 The Plunge- Bath.— This is employed but little, except at the Esta- 
 blishments. Those who have conveniences will often find it one of the best 
 processes. Any tub or box holding water enough to allow the whole body 
 to be immersed, with the limbs extended, answers the purpose. A very 
 good plunge can be made of a large cask cut in two near the middle. It 
 is a useful precaution to wet the head before taking a bath. 
 
 The Shower-Bath. — This needs no description. It is not frequently 
 used in treatment, but is often very convenient. Those liable to a "rush 
 of blood to the head," should not allow much of the shock of the stream 
 upon the head. Feeble persons should never use this bath until prepared 
 by other treatment. 
 
 Fomentations. — These are employed for relaxing muscles, relieving 
 spasms, griping, nervous headache, etc. Any cloths wet in hot water 
 and applied as warm as can be borne, generally answer the purpose ; but 
 flannel cloths dipped in hot water, and wrung nearly dry in another cloth or 
 handkerchief, so as to steam the part moderately, are the most efficient 
 sedatives. 
 
 Injections. — These are warm or tepid, cool or cold. The former are 
 used to quiet pain and produce free discharge ; the latter to check excessive 
 evacuations and strengthen the bowels. For the former purpose ~ large 
 quantity should be used ; and for the latter a small quantity. 
 
 General Bathing Rules.— Never bathe soon after eating. The most 
 powerful baths should be taken when the stomach is most empty. No full 
 bath should be taken less than three hours after a full meal. Great heat 
 or profuse perspiration are no objections to going into cold water, provided 
 the respiration is not disturbed, and the patient is not greatly fatigued or 
 
BATHING. 
 
 exhausted. The body should always be comfortably warm at the time of 
 taking any cold bath. Exercise, friction, dry wrapping, or fire may be re- 
 sorted to, according to circumstances. Very feeble persons should com- 
 mence treatment with warm or tepid water, gradually lowering the tempe- 
 rature. 
 
 The temperature of baths should always be regulated by the 
 temperature of the patient. Very feeble invalids should never 
 take very hot nor very cold baths of the whole surface, although 
 hot or cold applications may be made locally to relieve spasms 
 or check discharges. Dyspeptics who are not emaciated and 
 are not disposed to chilliness may take a tepid ablution — 70 to 
 8c degrees — each morning, and a hip bath each afternoon for 
 ten minutes, at 75 to 85 degrees. For feebler persons the tepid 
 ablution or wet rubbing sheet each other day is sufficient, with 
 the hip-bath on the alternate day. Still feebler persons may 
 take the tepid rubbing sheet one day, the dry rubbing sheet the 
 second day, and the hip-bath the third day, and so on ; and il 
 extremely feeble the wet rubbing sheet should only be employ- 
 ed once a week, and the dry rubbing sheet on the other days. 
 The dry rubbing sheet is practically an air-bath, and has never 
 been sufficiently appreciated in or out of health institutions. 
 
 Sun-baths are among, the best appliances in self-treatment, 
 as most patients can manage them without assistance. All 
 that is needed is a sunshiny place, in-doors or out, where the 
 temperature is agreeable. The patient has only to expose the 
 naked body to the sunlight and make gentle friction over the 
 whole surface with dry towels, or a sheet, for five to ten min- 
 utes. 
 
 * For bathing purposes, as for drinking and cooking, there is 
 a great difference between pure and hard water. Hard and 
 impure water may be better than none, but the rule is, the 
 purer the better. 
 
*3* 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 CLOTHING. 
 
 So far as the recovery of health is concerned, the dyspeptic 
 has only to dress in the most comfortable manner possible to 
 insure the best possible results. But fashion has so demoral- 
 ized judgment, perverted taste, and enslaved the minds of our 
 people that it seems necessary to say a good deal on this sub- 
 ject, in addition to what has been said and illustrated in the 
 first part of this work ; and as the young ladies all over our 
 country are going to rum in droves because of the unwhole- 
 some garments that they put on, a few more " lines upon lines 
 and precepts upon precepts, ' may not be inappropriate, 
 
 We should always keep in mind that clothing can never 
 impart heat to the body ; it only retains the heat which the 
 body imparts, which heat of the body is owing to the circulation. 
 The better the conducting material of clothing the more readily 
 the heat of the body passes through it ; and the more non- 
 conducting the material the longer the heat is retained ; hence 
 in warm weather, linen and cotton, and in cold weather woolen 
 and fir, are best adapted to maintaining an equilibrium of 
 bodily temperature. 
 
 Says a writer in the Science of Health : 
 
 " We can easily understand how a delicate woman, weighed down by a 
 mass of heavy clothing that would fatigue a strong man, with all her phys- 
 ' ical powers depressed and her circulation reduced to a low ebb, should 
 shiver with cold, within the most abundant wrappings. Do not make the 
 mistake of supposing that a heavy fabric is necessarily a warm one. It is a 
 fact that a few folds of light fleecy material thrown loosely together are 
 a much more efficient protection against cold than a double thickness, even, 
 of some stuff four times its weight, and as compact as a board. Let wool 
 and fur, both in their natural shape bad conductors of heat and therefore 
 well calculated to preserve the natural warmth of the body, enter largely 
 into the attire, and in as light a form as possible ; refuse positively to don a 
 garment of any sort in any weather, whose shape and weight shall impede 
 the movements or cause the least sensation of fatigue in wearing it, and above 
 all avoid weighing down the hips with the multiplicity of skirts which are 
 
CLOTHING. 
 
 133 
 
 the abomination of the present age of dress ; give the shoulders their proper 
 share of the weight of the clothing to sustain ; allow no uncomfortable 
 restrictions to impede the free action of the organs of breathing and circu- 
 lation, and you may bid farewell to pains in the back and shoulders, to 
 headache, and to diificulty of breathing ; you will ride less and walk more, 
 for walking will then be a pleasure, instead of an almost impossible task, 
 as it is to a fashionably dressed woman now-a-days." 
 
 The Washington Star newspaper makes the following re- 
 port of a lecture recently delivered in the Congregational 
 Church of that city, by Mrs. Chandler. It is certainly 
 <k plain talk," but as it is talk that every person ought to 
 hear, and this book is intended for everybody to read, it 
 may be properly recorded in this place : 
 
 " Our denaturalized, deformed, depraved tastes render us an easy prey 
 to the tricks of the tradesmen on both sides of the water. Suppose our 
 dwellings to be constructed upon a model planned across -the ocean, with- 
 out reference to our climate, our American modes of living, our physical de- 
 mands, our means, our health or our comfort. Yet that is the stupid 
 way in which we are led in that which comes nearer to us than our 
 houses— the dress we wear. 
 
 " Our grandmothers have injured this whole generation with their broad- 
 board corset, and we, already diseased from many other causes beside, 
 and lacking their plumpness and beauty, are completing the wreck by 
 binding and pinching and pressing and padding until the woman who re- 
 tires at night is so unlike the one who walked by day that we need not 
 wonder that the bridegroom, frightened by the dissolving view, does not 
 know which is the bride, the clothes or the woman. 
 
 ' k The dress of the Friends is simple enough, but proves to be neither eco- 
 nomical nor convenient. The Primitive Methodist dress, designed to be 
 repulsive, died away for lack of beauty. When man was recognized as 
 creator of the child, master of the woman, and disposer of the daughter, 
 he arrayed himself accordingly in gorgeous apparel ; but with the partial 
 elevation of woman his pride has taken a new departure, and the average 
 American man now takes pride in the dress of his wife. While he consults 
 freedom, ease, convenience and health in his own dress, he is glad to know 
 that his wife and daughters represent his resources in their wardrobe. 
 
 " Emily Faithfull says the larger number of those who come to her in ex- 
 treme destitution for assistance to obtain employment are widows and daugh- 
 ters of clergymen and other men of moderate mcome who have been ac- 
 customed to being supported, and had never learned any means whatever 
 of earning, accumulating, investing or saving. Philanthropic women in 
 our own country give the same testimony. It is but a step from helpless 
 
134 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 destitution to hopeless degradation. Women in this Republic have esta- 
 blished a caste in dress which makes a young woman whose father has an 
 income of $1,500 feel that she must compete with the young lady whose 
 father has $15,000 per annum, and the girl who earns $5 a week must in 
 all respects keep pace with the one who receives $15 a week. 
 
 " The demands of fashion are more imperative than the demands of virtue, 
 and a young lady feels more disgraced by an unfashionable garment than 
 by soiled under clothing or dilapidated morals. Grinder & Co., willing to 
 swell the list of lost sheep, offer a young lady $3 a week for constant labor, 
 and when she states that it is impossible to even purchase food and shelter for 
 that sum, they politely inquire if she has not some gentleman friend who 
 will make up the balance ; or, still more blandly, 'We will give you $20 a 
 week, and you need net work at all.' " 
 
 We need only remark, in concluding this chapter, that 
 tight shoes or boots are two evils that should be avoided by 
 all who would keep well, and especially by all dyspeptics 
 who would regain health. Tight-fitting shoes or boots con- 
 duce to coldness of the feet, a symptom that always troubles 
 feeble invalids in cold weather ; while high heels throw the 
 whole body out of perpendicularity, and render all exercises, 
 more especially walking, net only less pleasant and less bene- 
 ficial, but in some instances positively injurious. Let a feeble 
 person, accustomed to walk one mile a day over heels one 
 inch thick, reduce the thickness to one-third of an inch, and 
 he may experience at once the difference between laborious 
 toil, and agreeable and useful recreation 
 
 Nothing can be said in favor of the "stove-pipe" hat which 
 has so long oppressed the heads of men ; it is conducive to con- 
 gestion of the brain in some degree, baldness, and in persons 
 predisposed to apoplexy actually dangerous. Whatever is 
 worn on the head should be light and soft, or ' ' softening of 
 the brain n may be the final result. 
 
 In behalf of dyspeptic clergymen I must protest against the 
 unhygienic manner in which fashion has dressed their necks : 
 and as an article in the Christian Advocate expresses the right 
 sentiments, I quote : 
 
 Ministers' Cravats. 
 
 " Who but Satan could ever have invented a 'minister's choker?' The 
 idea of tying a band, a cravat, or anything else chicly alxwt the throat, 
 
CLOTHING. 
 
 135 
 
 thus paralyzing all the organs of the voice, is absurd and cruel in the ex- 
 treme. Let the neck be free ; and let all the bands around it be from one 
 to two inches larger than the neck itself. If a collar-band is close, 
 unbutton it. The neck will expand nearly an inch when the veins are sur- 
 charged with blood during the active mental and bodily exercise of public 
 speaking. Then a loose collar becomes close, and the swollen veins, press- 
 ing against the cravat, are unable to bring back to the heart the blood 
 which the arteries have conveyed to the head. The arteries keep pouring 
 their flood into the head ; the veins swell, and cannot return it ; the blood 
 dams up, a dark and livid flood ; the face looks red and purple ; thought 
 ceases, ideas vanish, words fail, and the preacher is confused, stammers, 
 and 'breaks down.' 
 
 "'Result of extempore preaching,' says one; 'Embarrassment,' says 
 another; 'better stick to the manuscript.' Fudge! it is simply a close 
 cravat— such a rigging would choke an apostle, and no man can preach 
 when he is choked. 
 
 " The throat is a wonderful instrument of music. Place the fingers upon 
 it, and every time you speak you can feel the vibration of the vocal organs, 
 producing sound. Anything that even touches the throat impairs the 
 purity of these sounds. Fling a cloth over the strings of a piano or violin, 
 and get music out of it if you can. So every cloth which surrounds the 
 throat impairs the sweetness of the voice. Women go with necks bare- 
 men have theirs swathed and bandaged, and ten women have sweet voices 
 where one man has one. A man's voice should be as pure as a woman's. 
 Why is it not ? He is shaved and choked. 
 
 " God has provided a covering for man's throat — light and soft, it clothes 
 the neck and preserves the health ; but a man gets a sharp iron, scrapes his 
 neck, ties a rag around it, takes cold, has sore throat, bronchitis, and con- 
 sumption, and dies. 
 
 " Preacher of the Gospel, strike for freedom and for life. Fling away 
 the razor. Tarry in Jericho till your beard has grown. Throw off then, 
 gradually, but entirely, the bandages about the neck ; stand erect, breathe 
 freely, think, speak, and act, in blissful exemption from embarrassment, 
 and exemplify what a man can be who fears God and cuts loose from the 
 fashions of a fleeting world." 
 
 The sanitary view of the color of clothing is correctly stated 
 by Dr. Nichols in the Journal of Chemistry : 
 
 "The color of clothing is by no means a matter of indifference. White 
 and light -colored clothes reflect the heat, while black and dark-colored 
 ones absorb it. White is the comfortable and fashionable color for clothing 
 in summer. It reflects Heat well, and prevents the sun's rays from passing 
 through and heating the body. If white is the best color for summer, it 
 (jges not follow that blacH is the best for winter, It must be rememberec) 
 
136 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 that black radiates heat with great rapidity. Give a coat of white paint to 
 a black steam radiator, which is capable of rendering a room comfortably- 
 warm at all times, and the temperature will fall at once, though the heat- 
 producing agency remain the same as before. A black garment robs the 
 body of a larger amount of heat than white, and consequently the latter 
 color is the best for winter garments. It is the best color for both summer 
 and winter. Although this statement may seem like blowing hot and cold, 
 it is nevertheless true. Let those who are troubled with cold feet, and who 
 wear dark socks, change to white, and see if the difficulty is not in part or 
 wholly removed. ' ' 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 SLEEP. 
 
 I have never known a dyspeptic invalid who could sleep too 
 much ; but I have known many whose chief burden of com- 
 plaining was sleeplessness. The rule for them all is, sleep as 
 much as possible. But there is a difference between dosing, 
 dreaming, or lying in bed, and sleeping. 
 
 It is a physiological law that assimilation mainly takes place 
 during sleep. When the mental powers are in repose, the food 
 elements, which have been elaborated by the digestive processes 
 during the day, are formed into tissues and structures. The 
 rapid emaciation of the body, and the delirium or insanity 
 which affects the brain, in all cases of protracted wakefulness, 
 prove that no one can be deprived of normal sleep without 
 absolute deterioration of health and certain abbreviation of 
 life. And it is a fact that ought never to be lost sight of in 
 managing irritable and restless dyspeptics, that the nervous tem- 
 perament and brain-labor necessitate a greater amount of 
 sleep, than do the vital, or motive temperament and manual 
 occupations. 
 
 Sound sleepers are generally sound thinkers, for the reason that 
 the wear and tear of brain substance is well renovated. They 
 are also powerful workers and long-lived, for the reason tha 
 the waste of the vital organs is well repaired. And it may be 
 stated as an invariable law of life, that no one ever did or evci 
 
SLEEP. 
 
 137 
 
 can be deprived of normal sleep without detracting correspond- 
 ingly from vigor of both mind and body, and length of days; 
 
 Much is said in these days of fast living, commercial energy, 
 and the mad pursuit of immediate pleasures and sensuous 
 indulgences, of overworked brains, as a cause of dyspepsia. 
 The true cause is, abused bodies. The brain cannot be over- 
 worked, provided the vital conditions are properly attended to. 
 
 A few years ago Dr. Edward Johnson, of London, wrote a 
 book in which he maintained the paradoxical positions that 
 ' 'dyspepsia is not a disease of the stomach ; constipation is not 
 a disease of the bowels !" The statements are simply absurd ; 
 but they have some degree of plausibility as explained. Dr. 
 Johnson argued, that as mental worryment, a feverish anxiety 
 to get rich, too close attention to business matters, and " over- 
 worked brains, " were among the chief producing causes of dys- 
 pepsia, the real disease was in the brain instead of the digestive 
 organs. But this is confounding causes and consequences. 
 Dyspepsia, as the term implies, affects primarily and principally 
 the digestive organs, be the causes what and where they may. 
 
 I am of the opinion that, taking all the people of this coun- 
 try, or of the whole earth, ten persons underwork their brains 
 to every one who overworks them ; and that ten persons over- 
 work their digestive organs to every one who underworks them. 
 Brain-work is in itself as healthful as any vocation can possibly 
 be ; indeed, a certain and a considerable amount of it is essen- 
 tial to the best condition and highest vigor of the vital organism. 
 
 Dr. Beard, in a late article in the Independent, makes the 
 following judicious observations : 
 
 "Persistent sleeplessness is a symptom that should always bring home to 
 us the query whether we are not in some way overworked or overworried. 
 Inability to sleep is one of the most constant precursors and accompani- 
 ments of cerebral exhaustion and decline. I have been informed by excel- 
 lent and direct authority that Mr. Greeley stated during the last campaign 
 that for fifteen years he had not had a good sound sleep. To those of us 
 who have been accustomed to see him dozing on the horse-cars, in the 
 omnibuses, and at church, this statement seems quite surprising ; but it is 
 probable that by these extemporaneous naps he sought to make up for the 
 wakeful hours of the night. x 
 
133 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 " Sleeplessness is oftentimes the prayer of the cerebral lobes for relief from 
 work and worry, and it should never go long unanswered. Some of the 
 greatest and healthiest natures of the world— like Goethe and Thorwaldsen — 
 have had a " talent for sleeping," which made all their other talents 
 shine at their best, for the brain is never so brilliant as just after fully 
 awaking from sound repose. Sir Walter Scott found by experience that 
 his mind was clearest for thinking out his novels just after rising, and for 
 that reason he took pains to prolong as much as possible his morning toi- 
 let ; and in the same way we may explain the fact that Calvin loved to com- 
 pose while lying in bed. 
 
 •* In great and pressing crises, when our work and our causes for worry 
 are trebled, the temptation is very strong to cut short our hours of sleep ; 
 but these are just the occasions when, if possible, we should sleep the most. 
 General Grant is credited with the statement that he owed the preservation 
 of his health during the late war to the fact that, come what might, he 
 always would have his eight or nine hours sleep. At one time, during the 
 Vicksburg campaign, I believe, he was unable to obtain this, and then he 
 began to suffer. Gladstone has declared that when he enters his home he 
 leaves the cares of state behind him. 
 
 " Sleep is food fcr the brain. If a penny saved is a penny earned, then to 
 economize nerve force by rest is, within certain limits, to supply nerve force 
 by eating and drinking. 
 
 "To work hard without overworking, to work without worrying, to do 
 just enough without doing to*o much— these are the great problems of the 
 future. Our earlier Franklin taught us to combine industry with economy ; 
 our * later Franklin ' taught us to combine industry with temperance ; our 
 future Franklin - if one should arise— must teach us how to combine indus- 
 try with the art of taking it easy." 
 
 Some dyspeptics will sleep best the fore part of the night, 
 and others the latter part, or early in the morning. Such pa- 
 tients should practice " early to bed and not early to rise, ' 
 until the habit of regular and orderly sleeping is acquired. I 
 hardly need say that such persons especially, as well as all 
 other persons generally, should avoid late or heavy suppers, and 
 all exciting exercises, occupations, or thoughts after sunset. 
 
 Sleepless dyspeptics are very liable to cold feet, and some- 
 times despite any quantity of bedding. In such cases bottles 
 of hot water, bags of hot sand, or hot bricks should be placed 
 at the feet. If a couple of bricks are well heated, and wrapped 
 in two or three folds of woolen cloth, they will remain warn} 
 ten or twelve hours. 
 
VENTILATION. 
 
 139 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 VENTILATION. 
 
 In the Chapter on Aeration, in the first part of this work, 
 we have seen the relation of respiration to nutrition. The 
 food elements can never be properly elaborated without free 
 and unimpeded breathing ; nor can they be well fitted for 
 assimilation unless the air be pure. The impurities in the air 
 we breathe, like those in the water we drink, or in the food we 
 eat, not only poison the blood and obstruct the organs with 
 foreign matters, but prevent the proper aeration of pabulum 
 in the lungs. In both of these ways does impure air tend to 
 derange the digestive organs. 
 
 But another very common, I had almost said universal 
 source of blood contamination, is the re-inhalation of carbonic 
 acid gas which has been exhaled, and the inhalation of the 
 waste matters of the body consequent on ill-ventilated apart- 
 ments. It is because no provision is made for ventilation that 
 so many tenement houses of our cities are so pestilential, ever 
 breeding typhoid fevers and other zymotic diseases. Our com- 
 mon school-houses, not being quite so bad, because only 
 occupied during a part of the day, do not infect their inmates 
 with sufficient rapidity to engender acute diseases, but are foul 
 enough to cause a variety of chronic affections, and predispose 
 to dyspepsia and many of its complications, especially those 
 which are termed scrofulous, or tuberculous, bilious, scorbutic, 
 etc. At this writing the Health Department of New York City 
 are inspecting school-houses, factories, and public buildings, 
 with the view of ascertaining their sanitary conditions. Dr. E. 
 H. James, City Sanitary Inspector, made a report to the Board 
 of Health, a few days ago, from which I make the following 
 extract, which is equally applicable, doubtless, to many cities 
 besides the commercial emporium, and, I fear to many rural 
 districts : 
 
 1 1 In connection with the recent inspections of public school buildings 
 and factories, made by the Health Inspectors, I directed, on the 3d inst., Dr» 
 
140 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 II. Endemann, Assistant Chemist of the Department, to collect specimens 
 of air from a few of the schools and other public buildings, and submit them 
 to chemical analysis, for the purpose of determining the amount of carbonic 
 acid and other impurities. This duty he has performed, and I herewith 
 present a brief abstract of his report. 
 
 " The following places were visited for this purpose : E. C. Higgins' 
 carpet factory, foot of West Forty-third-street ; Farren & Guetal's felt 
 factory, No. 319 East Twenty -second-street ; Johnson & Falckner's hair- 
 cloth factory, Nos. 246 and 248 Sixth Avenue ; Mellen & Co.'s horse hair, 
 No. 518 East Seventeenth-street ; Tombs Prison ; Elm-street School ; 
 Roosevelt -street School ; Thirteenth street School, near Seventh Avenue ; 
 Thirteenth-street School, near Sixth-avenue ; school, Nos. 97 and 99 
 Greenwich-street ; school in Vandewater-street ; school in Madison-street, 
 near Jackson. Specimens of air obtained from two of the factories men- 
 tioned were examined and found to contain from 14.7 to 16.7 parts of car- 
 bonic acid in 10,000 parts of air, averaging about four times the normal 
 quantity, which is 4 parts in 10,000. 
 
 The mechanical impurities generally consisted of the dust arising from the 
 operations pursued, and were either of an organic or inorganic nature. Of 
 the former, fine sharp pieces of hair, by irritating the mucous membrane of 
 the respiratory organs, form the most frequent source of bronchial or 
 pulmonary affections among this class of operatives. 
 
 ik The air in the male department of the Tombs Prison was found to con- 
 tain 14 7 parts of carbonic acid in 10,000 as an average of two experiments, 
 and that in the female department 8.45 parts, being also the average of 
 two experiments. 
 
 " From our public schools Dr. Endemann obtained seventeen samples of 
 air the examination of which determined the presence of carbonic acid, 
 varying in amount from 9.7 to 35.7 parts in 10,000 or, in other words, 
 from more than twice to nearly nine times the normal quantity. The ven- 
 tilation in these buildings is generally faulty and can be obtained only by 
 opening the windows, a practice detrimental to the health of the children 
 who sit near or directly under them. The following experiments, made in 
 the Roosevelt -street School, shows the inefficiency of ventilating flues 
 in the wall unprovided with means for creating an upward current. An 
 examination of the air in one of the class-rooms provided with a ventilating 
 flue, was made while one of the windows was open, and yielded 17.2 parts 
 of carbonic acid in 10,000. The window was then closed, and after the 
 lapse of ten minutes another examination gave 32.2 parts of carbonic acid, 
 or an increase of 15.6 parts. The experiment now became to the teacher 
 and children so oppressive that it was not continued. Dr. Endemann 
 says : ' If the accumulation of carbonic acid had been allowed to continue 
 we might have reached within one hour the abominable figure of no.' 
 
VENTILATION. 
 
 The following is a statement of the average result obtained from the 
 several experiments made in each school. 
 
 As expired air contains not only this poisonous gas, but also effete animal 
 matter escaping from the bodies of those present, and in quantities in 
 proportion to the amount of carbonic acid exhaled, and it follows that air 
 vitiated by respiration is far more deleterious than air vitiated by the same 
 amount of carbonic acid from other sources, and as the standard of per- 
 missable impurity has been placed by high sanitary authority (Dr. Parkes 
 and others ) at six parts of carbonic acid in 10,000 of air, it is evident that 
 the best practical talent should be engaged in designing and perfecting 
 means for securing to our public schools adequate and thorough ventilation. " 
 
 I recommend the Sanitary Inspector to test the atmosphere 
 of some of our first class hotels. He will find it quite as car- 
 bonic as in some of the school-houses, besides being redolent 
 of a worse miasm, and a more efficient cause of dyspepsia and 
 consumption — tobacco smoke. 
 
 The most prevalent error in private houses is insufficient 
 ventilation of the bed -rooms. Many persons who take great 
 pains to have pure air and plenty of it during the day, will take 
 as much pains to exclude it during the night. Many a dys- 
 peptic is fidgety, nervous, and sleepless half of the night, and 
 irritable and melancholy all the next day, simply because he 
 had been told by somebody that "night air is dangerous," 
 and had excluded it from his room as much as possible. Such 
 persons ought to be informed that out-door air is always better 
 and never worse than in-door air. 
 
 Young children and infants, though born with fair organiza- 
 tions, are often rendered puny and scrofulous by sleeping in 
 unventilated rooms. 
 
 Notwithstanding the many " physiologies for schools," the 
 6cores of medical journals, the lectures and writings of health- 
 reformers, and the wide distribution of health periodicals, the 
 ignorance and recklessness of the great majority of the people 
 
 Carbonic Acid. 
 
 Elm-street School, three experiments 
 
 Roosevelt -street School, two experiments , 
 
 Thirteenth-street (near Sixth-avenue) School, two experiments 
 
 14.6 
 
 Greenwich-street School, two experiments. 
 Vandewater-street School, two experiments 
 Madison-street School, four experiments. . , 
 
142 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 on the relation of respiration to health is astonishing. Any 
 one may have a demonstration of this fact any cold or cool day 
 between New York and Philadelphia, during the stave season. 
 
 A few days ago I was on a train between these places. The 
 day was warm and sunny ; there was a little snow on the 
 ground, which was rapidly melting. In the car were two stoves 
 nearly red-hot ; nearly every seat was occupied, not one window 
 was raised, and every little ventilator overhead was closed tight. 
 The air soon become so foul that I was actually nauseated, and 
 several of the passengers were nearly asphyxiated — as their 
 semi-sleepy appearance and stupid dozing but too plainly in- 
 dicated. Unable to get a seat by the window, I occupied my- 
 self in passing from one car to another. " standing on the 
 platform" with a decided disposition to trespass on the " rules 
 and regulations " every time I changed carsu In this manner 
 I managed to ventilate myself until a seat next a window was 
 vacated, when I raised the window and ventilated the whole 
 car. Yet in this car were full-grown men and women, well- 
 dressed, some of them ornamented with jewelry and diamonds, 
 and all of them appearing intelligent in the ways of business 
 and fashion. Whose fault was it that they had never been 
 taught that atmospheric air is ' ' the breath of life " ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 LIGHT. 
 
 Bright light and sunshine are among the remedial in- 
 fluences not to be disregarded in the management of dyspep- 
 tic invalids. The congestion of the large internal viscera, the 
 liver especially, disposes them to melancholy and gloominess, 
 which condition and feelings are always aggravated by dark and 
 shaded apartments. There is, moreover, an innervating and 
 inspiriting influence in sunlight ; hence dyspeptics should 
 spend as much time as possible out of doors in clear weather, 
 only avoiding the direct rays of the sun when they are painfully 
 hot. Window curtains should be eschewed, even though the 
 
LIGHT. 
 
 H3 
 
 sunlight fades the carpet ; nor should dyspeptics sit in parlors 
 where the light is excluded, however luxuriously furnished. 
 Light will do more for the vitiated blood, morbid secretions, 
 and neuralgic nerves than glittering mirrors and downy sofas. 
 
 It is well known to physicians that the people who reside on 
 the sunny side of the streets of our cities are less liable to scrof- 
 ula, zymotic diseases, and cholera ; and that underground 
 apartments, where direct sunlight never enters, are prolific 
 sources of tubercular affections in all their multitudinous forms. 
 Those who9e hard fortune compels them to occupy such places 
 are almost always affected with measly and enlarged livers, and 
 generally also with tuberculosis of the mesenteric glands, fre- 
 quently extending to the liver and lungs. 
 
 Children should be allowed to expose their heads and faces 
 (and the whole surface frequently) freely to sunshine ; if 
 freckles mar the beauty of the girl, it will be amply com- 
 pensated by the fresher complexion and superior beauty of the 
 woman. Parasols, except in the middle of the day during the 
 "heated term," are pernicious things, as are the veils with 
 which so many fashionable or fashion-aping ladies, shade their 
 faces. They invariably render the eyes weak and irritable, 
 aggravate congestion of the brain, and predispose to headache 
 and innumerable indispositions which come under the compre- 
 hensive phrase, 4 4 nervousness. " 
 
 There is much food for reflection in the following paragraph, 
 which I copy from the Philadelphia Evening Star : 
 
 " The Sun a Physician.— Which is to be preferred, a faded carpet or a 
 faded complexion ? Nine tenths of our lady friends will say a " faded car- 
 pet," and yet how few of them give a practical expression to their preference. 
 If some of the pale-faced women, so many of whom are seen daily in the 
 street, could be prevailed upon to make up their minds to let the sunlight of 
 heaven visit them more frequently and more liberally m their dwellings, they 
 would soon find that the bright, rosy colors abstracted from the carpets would 
 be transferred to their cheeks again, and, more than this, that the lassitude 
 and weariness of which they complain would be replaced by the freshness 
 and vigor of robust health. 
 
 "No greater mistake can be made than that of excluding the sun from 
 the dwelling. The sun is a great physician. Its curative powers are not 
 lufficiently understood. If the benefits of a stm bath daily, of sun in the 
 
i44 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 parlor, the sitting-room and the bed-chamber were as extensively advertised 
 as are some of the quack nostrums of the day, and as generally patronized, 
 how many more bright eyes and rosy cheeks we should see, and how many 
 less pale-faced invalids. Give Dr. Sun a fair trial. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TEMPERATURE. 
 
 Our climate, though marked temperate on the maps, is very 
 intemperate in its vicissitudes, the thermometer ranging more 
 than i oo degrees, and, in some years, 120 degrees Fahr. In 
 summer hundreds die of " sunstroke," and in winter as many 
 die of extreme cold. Be. this mortality is much more attrib- 
 utable to invalidism, or to unhygienic habits or to other cir- 
 cumstances, than to alternations of temperature. Good health 
 can be enjoyed whenever good digestion can be performed. 
 It is true that man can only attain his highest development 
 within certain isothermal lines ; for the relaxing heat of the 
 tropics renders him indolent, while the extreme cold regions 
 make it impossible for him to do much more than provide 
 necessary food and shelter. There is, however, no necessity 
 for dyspeptic invalids to go away from any non-malarious part 
 of the United Stales in order to recover health, provided they 
 make the proper use of such hygienic measures as are obtain- 
 able in all healthful localities. Eastern consumptives have a 
 fashion of going to Minnesota ; but as they generally depend 
 on the climate there to effect the cure, and disregard nearly 
 all other conditions of health, they seldom recover, except fiom 
 the incipient stages of their ailment. And northern dyspeptics 
 have a fashion of spending their winters in Florida, the 
 Bermudas, or some other place where milder skies prevail in 
 the winter season. They may enjoy themselves better in "these 
 places, during the cold months, than they could at home, as 
 they "live, move, and have their being," more in the open 
 air, and may prolong life ; but they seldom recover. Dys- 
 peptic, like consumptive invalids, generally carry all their bad 
 
TEMPERATURE. 
 
 H5 
 
 habits with them, trusting to the " one-ideaism " of dimatopa- 
 ihy ; but as they cannot travel away from themselves, if the) 
 carry their maladies and the causes of them wherever they go, 
 changes of place, as a general rule, only make a miserable 
 life more tolerable, and perhaps more protracted. Proper 
 clothing, suitable dwellings or apartments, and hygienic hab- 
 its, render it possible for all curable dyspeptics to recover 
 health in almost any latitude or locality where it is fit for a 
 civilized human being to have his " local habitation and his 
 name. " 
 
 A writer in the Atlantic Monthly for March, 1873 (George 
 A. Shone), proposes a plan for superceding Florida and the 
 Antilles, more magnificent and praiseworthy than useful or 
 practical. His " institution " contemplates a forty-acre crystal 
 palace, so arranged with steam-heaters and ice-reservoirs that 
 the temperature could be regular to any degree desired ; walks, 
 fountains, statuary, flowers, shrubbery, etc. , are to make the in- 
 side attractive, while boulevards, parks, play-grounds, gardens, 
 drives, and hotels are to surround the immense structure of 
 glass and iron. The cost is estimated at some twelve millions 
 of dollars, and the income — two dollars a day for board — at 
 nearly one million. The financial basis is well arranged, but 
 who would be benefited by it ? 
 
 It would be patronized mainly by the idlers who would go 
 there to "kill time," and the pleasure seekers, who are forever 
 in the pursuit of new sensations under difficulties ; and there 
 are quite too many attractive places of resort for such persons 
 already. 
 
 If Mr. Shone supposes that dyspeptics could be happy in 
 such an Eden, it is because he has not had many of them to 
 manage. A majority of them would find the ideal paradise a 
 real purgatory. The contrast between so many things to enjoy 
 and their never-absent but ever-changing aches and pains, 
 would aggravate their wretchedness, transform hypochondria 
 to madness, and doubt to despondency. A plain cottage, a 
 rough road, a sylvan grove, a natural river or stream, and 
 society among farmers or mechanics who pursue some useful 
 
146 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 vocation, and whose habits, dress, style and associations are 
 more in accordance with the order and simplicity of nature, is 
 what they need. When some intelligent philanthropist will 
 arrange a forty-thousand-acre farm into gardens, and orchards, 
 and workshops, construct plain and convenient dwellings, and 
 provide work where invalids can pay their way, as well as play 
 grounds for recreation, he will do one of the things needful. 
 It is the poor producers, not the rich consumers, who should be 
 the study of the world s charity and benevolence. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 MENTAL rNTIiUENCES. 
 
 Pleasant scenery and cheerful companions are certainly 
 among the desiderata for dyspeptics. They must have exercise, 
 and whether work or play is best, when only one is available, 
 depends on which is most enjoyable ; for exercise, like food, 
 does most good when it is best relished. In a perfect system 
 of exercise for invalids, a variety of work, and different plays, 
 would be embraced in the remedial programme. All work 
 and no amusement begets stupidity and adds to melancholy ; 
 while all play and no useful work degenerates into selfishness 
 and dissipation. The wise man and skilful physician will com- 
 bine the two in such manner as to suit the various conditions 
 of the patients. 
 
 Many games are amusing, and so far useful ; and these 
 should be varied so that some should be intellectual, others 
 social, and others physical. Dyspeptics are ever prone to dwell 
 on their morbid sensations, and seem never to be so miserably 
 happy as when relating the endless story of their sufferings to 
 others, and especially to the physician. They should be led 
 into other habits and out of this one ; for, unless the confirmed 
 dyspepil t can be induced to think little and talk less of his bad 
 feelings, the chance of ultimate recovery is small. 
 
 There is a wide field for the exercise of discretion on the 
 part of the medical adviser in managing dyspeptics ; and the 
 
MENTAL INFLUENCES. 
 
 H7 
 
 chief point of skill is to guide hia intercourse with them so as 
 to avoid depressing seriousness and irritating levity. His man- 
 ner should always be positive and hopeful, without being dog- 
 matic or flattering. There are no more suspicious persons un- 
 der the sun than dyspeptics who feel themselves running down 
 in spite of all the most nutritious food their weak stomachs can 
 tolerate. If you look, talk and act with dignity and gravity, 
 they imagine your prognosis is unfavorable ; while if you treafc 
 their symptoms lightly, or do not give sufficient attention to 
 their manifold distresses, and cannot satisfactorily explain all 
 of their morbid sensations and utterly inexplicable nervousnesses, 
 they are apt to think your diagnosis is at fault, or that you do 
 not take proper interest in their case. 
 
 The Hygienic physician (and no other ought ever to meddle 
 with a confirmed dyspeptic), should give the patient one tho- 
 rough examination ; listen with patience (if it has to be as- 
 sumed for the occasion) to all he has to say, relevant or irrele- 
 vant ; explain the nature of his case ; indicate its complications 
 and their special causes ; give him the rationale of his leading 
 symptoms ; tell him the plan of treatment to be pursued, and 
 then instruct him to dismiss all thoughts of his condition and 
 feelings, save when they are manifestly new or greatly aggra- 
 vated, and give his whole mind and might to doing the things 
 which make up the remedial plan. 
 
 He should never talk nor think, if he can help it, about food 
 while he is eating ; but take the quantity and quality that his 
 judgment approves, and say to the stomach, i( Peace, be still." 
 
 Nor should he watch his sensations after meals, to see how 
 the food agrees, for this is almost certain to make it disagree. 
 * ' A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." Indeed it is 
 medicinal in the hygienic and best sense of that word ; and 
 happy is the physician, and blessed is the pauent, when the 
 judicious manner of the one, and the cheerful compliance of 
 the other, render the recovery of health comparatively easy. 
 
 The influence of imagination on the vital functions has 
 always been recognized ; and it was this recognition that enabled 
 the ancient physicians to be so successful with charms, amulets, 
 
148 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 and incantations, as it enables thousands of persons at the pre- 
 sent day to perform cures which seem very marvellous to those 
 who do not understand the rationale. 
 
 Plato taught that a person must have a natural disposition 
 towards a thing if he would become that thing. It is most 
 true that where the disposition dwells on an imaginary ailment, 
 that ailment or some other will be the result of the mental in- 
 fluence ; and true also, of the opposite mental state, when the 
 mind dwells on anticipated health the doctor has much less to 
 do. 
 
 We should not be too hard on the quacks so long as the 
 people ' ' will have medicine." True, the medical profession 
 ought to teach them the better way ; but as they do not, 
 as invalids must have something to pin their faith to besides 
 reason and common sense, and as the empirics are quite as 
 safe as the regulars in their manner of dosing and materia 
 medica, it would be a calamity to suppress them if we could, 
 unless we could at the same time suppress the materia medica 
 of the regular profession. 
 
 Lord Bacon has said: ''The imagination is next akin to 
 miracle-working faith;" and that "It needeth a Delian diver 
 rightly to pursue the study of the imagination in disease." 
 Edward Spencer, in the Atlantic, in an article entitled "A good 
 word for Quacks, " remarks : 
 
 €t There is no doctor who would not rather contend with serious and even 
 vital maladies, than with the thousand and one conceits and hypochondriacal 
 fancies of the malade imaginaire, who, aggrieved by dyspepsia, and with 
 his mind all awry, demands to be treated for every disease under heaven 
 but the one mental lesion that makes him such a thorough nuisance. He 
 has, indeed, no mortal malady ; but does not his imag naticn give such as 
 real and actual a twist to the nervous currents of his body as the magnet 
 gives to the course of the compass ? It is a nervous condition like this — 
 and all sickness is accompanied with more or less general disturbance of the 
 nerves —that the doctor and the quack equally find their opportunity, and 
 establish their prestige, by working upon the excited and despondent or 
 expectant feelings. The force of sympathy, even, can work a miracle, if 
 the mind be in this state." 
 
OCCUPATION. 
 
 H9 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 OCCUPATION. 
 
 Useful, and, in many cases indispensable as may be the 
 remedial measures treated of in the preceding chapters, there 
 are many cases of invalidism in which occupation is the one 
 thing needful. There are three classes of society, considered 
 in reference to health, the working class proper, who have reg- 
 ular vocations, but who can have needful leisure for recreation 
 and education^-the middle class ; the drudging class, who are 
 i toiled to death like beasts of burden prematurely, and the idle 
 class. I need hardly say that the last two classes are abnormal- 
 ities in sociology ; and it is difficult to say which is most to 
 be pitied. It is hard to labor incessantly with no reward ex- 
 cept just food, and raiment, and shelter enough to keep the 
 muscles in working order ; no opportunity for mental improve- 
 ment, and no hope of a better future in this life ; and this is 
 the condition of more than one-half of the human race. But 
 who knows the miseries of "upper tendom?" I am of the 
 opinion that to rust and rot to death, or to die of dissipation, 
 is quite as disagreeable, all things considered, as to be worked 
 to death. The hopeless pauper may have few enjoyments ; but 
 the great law of compensation does not make an exception in 
 his case ; he is exempt from a thousand miseries that those who 
 only live to eat, drink, dress, and enjoy the fruits of others' 
 labors, suffer continually. Indeed, one can hardly walk 
 through the thoroughfares of the world's great cities, and wit- 
 ness the meretricious displays of what is called wealth and 
 fashion, without a thought, if he is reflective, that one class of 
 our people make themselves miserable in order to have other 
 classes think that they are happy. There are thousands of 
 beggars who would not exchange their " home" in some sti- 
 fling attic, for palatial mansions, provided they were obliged to 
 take the vexations, cares, sickness, doctors, nurses, and their 
 attendant and inseparable disappointments. 
 
15° 
 
 DYSPEPSM. 
 
 Invalids should have some occupation that is useful, and 
 some object in life ; for it is the thing to be achieved in the 
 distant though uncertain future that energizes the mind, invig- 
 orates the body, gives persistence to effort, overcomes obstacles, 
 and keeps mind and body in harmonious relations to each 
 other. 
 
 God and nature have so ordered the universe that one person 
 can no more do another's work, without damage to both than 
 one can do another's eating, or sleeping, or breathing. 
 
 As dyspeptics are more prone to depression and melan- 
 choly than most other clasGes of invalids, whatever can inspire 
 hopefulness should be made available, if possible. And, valu- 
 able as are gymnasia, games, plays, etc., there are many cases 
 in which all together do not equal in remedial efficacy, any use- 
 ful and healthful occupation I have many times wondered 
 that, with so much surplus wealth in the land, and so much 
 benevolence seeking expression and practical application, not a 
 single dollar was ever given for such an institution as human 
 society needs more than all others — an institution to provide 
 health conditions, employment, and hygienic education and 
 training for the sick and needy. 
 
 Much is said, now- a days, of persons dying of overwork. 
 But there was never a greater error. The Golden Age, in a 
 recent issue, talked the right sentiments on this subject : 
 
 " The newspapers never tire of preaching pleasant homilies on overwork. 
 Gov. Geary died of that disease. 3o did Mr. Greeley. And so did Mr. 
 Raymond. And so do hundreds of other men whose work the world wants, 
 and whose wisdom and experience arc sorely needed. We have committed 
 the homily to memory, and can produce it with variations and illustrations 
 whenever circumstances require us to talk without saying anything. But the 
 plain truth is that not one man in a million dies from overwork alone. It 
 is not the overwork, but working in unwise ways, without that care of vital 
 mechanism which is absolutely necessary to keep it from wearing out at one 
 point or breaking down at another, which does the mischief we so loudly 
 deplore. One man kills himself by brain -work, because he is too indolent 
 or stupid to balance the account by a proper amount of muscular exercise. 
 Another kills himself by irregular habits, or exposures, or strains, or over- 
 indulgence. Sometimes a working man steals an hour or two away from 
 sleep every night, and is put to death for petit larceny. Sometimes a man 
 
OCCUPATION. 
 
 dies because the sober cares of life have completely choked the laughter- 
 valve of his nature and ten perish from excess of worry where one dies from 
 excess of work. 
 
 " The example ot Talleyrand, Napoleon, Brougham, Humboldt, not to 
 mention other eminent toilers, goes to show that there is scarcely any limit 
 to the amount of labor a man can do, provided that he will keep himself at 
 the highest working condition, and use himself with the same wisdom and 
 care with which he manages a valuable horse or a finely-constructed machine. 
 If he will insist on compelling the animal he is bound up with to do two days' 
 work in one day, or to strain himself by some terrible over-exertion, or to 
 tug and toil in the harness until every particle of elasticity is lost and the 
 possibility of recuperation is gone — if he will neglect the fine and delicate 
 mechanism until friction wears it out in one place and rust eats it out in 
 another, and dust clogs its joints and cinders cut through its nicely adjusted 
 gearing — he must pay the penalty of his neglect in impaired power and a 
 premature breaking down. It is not less labor that men want, but wiser 
 methods of working, more varied occupation, better care, more frequent 
 recuperation, and larger invoices of mirth and joy, with nobler incentives 
 and hopes. We are satisfied that had Mr. Greeley given half the thought 
 to caring for himself that he gave to the care of cattle, had he balanced his 
 exacting brain-work with a corresponding physical exercise, if he had taken 
 a daily bath of side-shaking and soul-expanding laughter, if instead of keep- 
 ing one set of faculties pressed down upon the grindstone until they were 
 ground clean away he had given each set its turn, he would doubtless have 
 done more and better work and been alive to-day. And so of the other 
 men whose premature departure is usually attributed to the same cause. 
 It is not overwork but unwise working that kills. It is not less labor, but 
 larger and wiser living that is needed to prolong life and enhance its results ' ' 
 
 On this overwritten subject of overwork, a late issue of the 
 Saturday Review has some pertinent remarks : 
 
 "Overwork is sometimes a simple appeal for compassion ; its supposed 
 victim is merely acting the part of pallid student, to impress the audience at 
 home. More frequently it is a delicate periphrasis for other evils of a less 
 presentable nature. Its sufferer may be imputing to intellectual exertion 
 what is really due to a misguided passion for supper-parties and to nights 
 spent in devotion to loo. In short, overwork is a highly convenient veil to 
 throw over the innumerable methods in which a youth may injure his con- 
 stitution. If the physical mischief produced by excessive study could be 
 fairly compared with the mischiefs produced by other causes, we have a 
 shrewd suspicion that their sum total would be infinitely less than is gener- 
 ally supposed. We may say pretty confidently, from a tolerably wider 
 experience, that the number of victims to overwork is utterly insignificant 
 
I 5 2 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 compared with the number of victims from other causes, and with the num- 
 ber of cases in which the excuse is imposed upon soft-hearted relations. 
 
 " Business which keeps a man in a constant oscillation between ruin and 
 a fortune, which follows him home and prevents him from sleeping, is incom- 
 parably more trying than almost any quantity of downright steady work. 
 The Stock Exchange, at New York, must fill lunatic asylums more quickly 
 than all the most laborious Universities in Germany, England, and Amer- 
 ica. A professor may labor at the collation of manuscripts, or even at the 
 search for the absolute, for fifteen hours a day, and be all the better for it ; 
 a third of the time spent in studying the ups and downs of Erie Railroad 
 shares, and staking money on the result, would qualify him for a strait - 
 waiscoat or a halter in a year. As, however,, speculation has a compara- 
 tively discreditable sound, the evils which it produces are very frequently 
 placed to the account of its more respectable rival, straightforward indus- 
 try. We choose, in one form or another, to spend a great part of our time 
 at the gaming-tables which exist in an infinite variety of forms in every 
 capital in the world, and then complacently complain that we have injured 
 ourselves by over application to our duties. 
 
 '• As a rule, therefore, we should say that the complaints of overwork 
 are amongst the most flimsy of all the excuses set up by men for the evils 
 which they bring upon themselves. Very few people really work hard ; 
 and when they do it generally agrees with them. Directly or indirectly 
 idleness does fifty times as much mischief, for the best cure for the love of 
 excitement is steady application. A vast amount of good pity is thrown 
 away in the world, and, instead of solemnly warning our friends not to do 
 too much, we should find it simpler to refuse the indirect compliment for 
 which they are maneuvering, and advise them to relax their minds by a 
 little strenuous activity.' ' 
 
 Another very prevalent error is the notion that intellectual 
 vigor and a pleasurable life are incompatible with the declin- 
 ing period of life, or old age. The world is full of examples 
 to the contrary, and all periods of history record them. Cor- 
 naro became a broken down dyspeptic at forty ; but by adopt- 
 ing a " sober and temperate life," enjoyed good health till 
 nearly one hundred. 
 
 It is said of Arnauld, the Jansenist, that he wished his friend 
 Nicole to assist him in a new work. Nicole replied : "We 
 are now old; is it not time to rest?" "Rest," exclaimed 
 Arnauld, "have we not all eternity to rest in?" 
 
 Dr. Samuel Miller says: "There is no doubt that the pre- 
 mature dotage of many distinguished men has risen from their 
 
OCCUPATION. 
 
 153 
 
 ceasing, in advanced life, to exert their faculties, under the 
 impression that they were too old to engage in any new enter- 
 prise/' 
 
 When John Adams was 90 years of age he was asked how 
 he kept the vigor of his faculties up to that great age. He re- 
 plied : "By constantly employing them; the mind of an old 
 man is like an old horse ; if you would get any work out of it 
 you must work it all the time. ' 
 
 We have on record many remarkable instances of earnest 
 and successful workers after they have passed into the period 
 known as old age. 
 
 Ecclesiastical history tells the story of Casidorus, who at the 
 age of 70 retired to a monastery and devoted the remaining 
 twenty years of his life to literature and religion ; and of Epi- 
 phanius, who became an author at 64 and wrote several large 
 works before his death. 
 
 Between the ages of 58 and 67 Baxter wrote forty works ; 
 after the age of 66 some of his most valuable works were writ- 
 ten. 
 
 1 ' The only remarkable thing, " says Hannah Moore, ' ' which 
 belonged to me as an authoress, was that I had written eleven 
 books after the age of sixty. " 
 
 Says Lord Brougham, at the conclusion of his autobiography : 
 " If any statements have been feebly and inaccurately rendered, 
 it may be remembered that I began this attempt after I was 
 eighty-three years of age, with enfeebled health, failing mem- 
 ory, and but slight materials by me to assist it. 
 
 Plato died at the age of eighty-one, it is said, with pen in 
 hand ; and an account is given of another who wrote a history 
 of his time at the age of one hundred and fifteen. 
 
 William Cullen Byrant is a living example of mental and 
 physical vigor, at nearly threescore and ten, equal to the best 
 days of early manhood, because of a sober and temperate life, 
 and due attention to vital conditions while performing im- 
 mense mental labor. 
 
 Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, now eighty-five, is as entertaining (and 
 more instructive) with her busy pen, as she was fifty years ago. 
 
154 
 
 DYSPEPSIA. 
 
 It would not be difficult to name a hundred living persons 
 of distinction who illustrate the principle that long life is con- 
 sistent with great mental activity, and also with active and 
 constant manual labor. But the final conclusion of the whole 
 matter may be summed up in these words : Hard workers 
 oflen live to be old ; idlers, seldom. 
 
 In conclusion, I will add the testimony of my own personal 
 experience ; which is this. Thirty years ago I adopted the 
 mode of life recommended in this work ; and, although I have 
 often felt obliged to labor inordinately, and have done much 
 literary night-work, I have not, during the last thirty years, 
 lost one day's work because of physical inability to do it, and 
 have not at any time been in a mental condition that obliged 
 me to decline literary work, when I have had time and oppor- 
 tunity to do it. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The following article, written by request for a newspaper, 
 which, however, refused to publish it because of its " radical- 
 isms," is appended to this work, as being a true exposition of 
 the case of Mr. Greeley, and as applicable to many similar cases 
 which are continually occurring. The writer is morally certain 
 that many valuable lives have been and may be saved, by 
 adopting the plan of treatment which is mentioned as applicable 
 to the case of Mr. Greeley. 
 
 DEATH OF HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 BY R. T. TRALL, M.D. 
 
 " Let us have peace " in the dying hour. When the would-be assassin 
 of the late Governor Seward was called on to " report " himself at the 
 gallows, and "be hung by the neck until he was dead, " he was offered the 
 customary brandy to support him through the terrible ordeal. "No," re- 
 plied the condemned malefactor, "I intend to die sober." 
 
 It is a horrible reflection on a false medical system, which mistakes the 
 fever of stimulation for vital invigoration, that so few men of prominence in 
 society are permitted to die in their "right mind." They are plied with 
 stupefying narcotics, or delirium-inducing stimulants, until the brain reels 
 and the recognitions become illusive, and finally, "the emancipated souls 
 ascend to the bosom of their God " in a state of gibbering intoxication, or 
 "dead" drunkenness. 
 
 We rarely read of the medical treatment of any distinguished person, 
 without brandy and morphine, or their equivalents, being among the lead- 
 ing remedies. Precisely how this was with the late Horace Greeley we 
 seem not likely to know, except inferentially, as the physicians who know 
 the most about the matter, positively refuse to give any information except 
 in vague generalities. Perhaps the people have no rights in this affair 
 which the medical profession is bound to respect. But, it concerns the 
 
i 5 6 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 living to know how Mr. Greeley was treated, and why he died. Can any 
 one's life be safe if the doings of the doctors must be shrouded in mystery ? 
 If the treatment of any given case will bear criticism, what have the doctors 
 to fear? If it will not, the people ought to know why. Is not the suspi- 
 cion legitimate that Mr. Greeley's physicians dare not submit their medica- 
 tion to public judgment ? It may be argued that non professional persons 
 are not proper judges. Granted ; but, cannot the learned physicians explain 
 and defend ? 
 
 I think it is not difficult to show that all of the professional opinions 
 which were given of Mr. Greeley's disease were erroneous, and that all of 
 the medication, so far as it has been published, was worse than useless. In 
 making this sweeping statement I wish it distinctly understood that I bring 
 no charge against the integrity nor intelligence of his physicians. I im- 
 peach the system, not the men. That being false, the treatment could not 
 have been true ; for physicians, like other persons, must practice according 
 to their theories. 
 
 With regard to the diagnosis, we have five or six opinions from as many 
 physicians: ''acute mania," "inflammation of the brain," "paralysis of 
 the brain," " hemiplegia," and " organic disease of the brain." The most 
 eminent of the physicians who were called in consultation, were as contra- 
 dictory in their opinions as they were celebrated for skill in just such cases / 
 But, the history of the patient, and the causes and symptoms of the " ner- 
 vous prostration " which all agreed was the essential condition, do not 
 justify any one of the diagnoses. That Mr. Greeley had been excessively 
 worked, and needed quiet, rest, sleep, is plain enough ; and this was the 
 whole case. But, as he did not incline to sleep, he was drugged to stupe- 
 faction, and therein was the fatal mistake. It was this first drugging that 
 induced the subsequent alarming symptoms which so confounded the diag- 
 nosis of the physicians. 
 
 Nearly a year ago, the Prince of Wales was supposed to be dying. For 
 several days he lay, as was supposed, at the point of death at Sandnngham ; 
 and he was only saved by an incident which does not often happen under 
 such circumstances— the discontinuance of the medicine. So long as the 
 doses were swallowed, the symptoms continued alarming, and the accu- 
 mulated doses finally occasioned so much "nervous prostration," that his 
 four attending physicians, mistaking the effects of the medication for fatal 
 complications, diagnosticated "goneness of one lung," and " perforation of 
 the bowels." Had the illustrious patient been a politician instead of a 
 prince, the doctors would probably have sought for {he diagnoses in the 
 head instead of the vitals, and doubtless have discovered as many impossi- 
 ble things as were ascertained in the case of Mr. Greeley. But, fortunately 
 for the Prince, Dr. Gull was called in consultation, and the treatment 
 opportunely changed from "brandy and other stimulants," to milk. And 
 the milk "acted" marvellously! In a few hours thereafter the patient 
 
157 
 
 was convalescent, and in twenty -four hours was out of all danger. There; 
 are two theories extant in relation to this wonderful change. I shall only 
 state them and leave the reader to his inferences. One is that milk, under 
 certain peculiar and extraordinary circumstances, is a medicine of peculiar 
 and extraordinary virtues ; and the other is that, as soon as the patient had 
 eliminated the drug medicines he began to recover. Those who adopt the 
 latter theory say that the patient was never in any danger, except of being 
 drugged to death, as was his father in 1862. 
 
 Humanity is naturally tough. Human beings do not die of over- 
 worked brains, want of sleep, fatigue, or "nervous prostration." And 
 Mr. Greeley was perhaps the last man in all this nation to be senously dis- 
 eased, much less to die because of political disappointment, domestic afflic- 
 tion, losses of property, position, or friends. He was " a man of sorrows 
 and acquainted with grief," as all true reformers and real philanthropists are. 
 His great good heart, and mighty though sometimes erring head, were 
 accustomed to pecuniary disasters, to bereavements that rive the soul, and 
 he was familiar with both victories and defeats in moral, political, and social 
 conflicts. Few men ever had a bet te t preparatory education for all possible 
 vicissitudes of fortune, and none ever more clearly realized or complacently 
 contemplated the uncertainties of political controversies. That he worked 
 hard for and earnestly desired to attain the highest position of honor and 
 influence may be admitted. But, to suppose that failure maddened or in- 
 flamed his bram and demoralized his whole nature, is simply absurd. He 
 was fully aware of all that could possibly happen in the immediate future, 
 and fully prepared for it. To talk of Horace Greeley dying of presidency 
 on the brain," though he might have been mistaken or unwise, or sicken- 
 ing unto death because of the death of his wife — who had been dying of 
 consumption for several years— is a libel on his name and fame. And add 
 to these afflictions severe toil, night -watching, and the vexations of injudi- 
 cious friends, selfish employees, and knavish and hypocritical associates, and 
 still Horace Greeley was man enough to have endured the whole without 
 dying. 
 
 The elephant, whose prowess fears not all the animals of the forest, may 
 be destroyed by an infinitesimal insect. A man of powerful body and giant 
 mind may die of a single grain of poison or of medicine. If Horace Greeley, 
 after the presidential campaign was decided, and his wife's remains had been, 
 deposited in the 4 'city of the dead," could have had undisturbed quiet for 
 a few days, he would, in all human probability, before this time have re- 
 sumed his proper place and sphere as editor of the Tribune. 
 
 The effects of prolonged watchfulness, excessive labor of body and mind, 
 disappointed ambition, and personal grievances (and these are all the ele- 
 ments of the case), are, accumulation of blood in the brain, constituting 
 cerebral congestion, and deficiency of blood in the surface and extremities. 
 This general condition of unbalanced circulation is evinced by hot head or 
 
i 5 8 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 pain in the head, with cold feet, rendering the patient sleepless, irritable, and 
 semi-delirious. A little aggravation of this congestion would render the 
 patient apoplectic; but there is nothing in this condition or in the attend- 
 ing symptoms, taken as a whole, on which to predicate "mania," inflam- 
 mation," or 44 paralysis." Dyspeptics very frequently have a similar con- 
 dition, with every one of Mr. Greeley's symptoms, for months, and yet recov- 
 er. It is not unfrequent for dyspeptics who are not seriously, certainly not 
 dangerously sick, to sleep so little and so fitfully that they imagine they do 
 not sleep at all. 
 
 The medication that Mr. Greeley needed was simply hygienic. I think 
 any competent nurse, left to his or her wits, without the aid or interference 
 of physicians, would have cured the patient. If he had been left to him- 
 self, and all visitors kept away, he would in due time have slept from shear 
 exhaustion, as patients do after a severe fever. And the sleep would have 
 saved him, as it does them, when they are not annoyed by attendants. This 
 is nature's method of balancing the circulation and restoring "the normal 
 play of all the functions." It is a mistaken pathology that is always seek- 
 ing the cause of deranged vital functions in paralysis or other affections of 
 the brain. The brain is the most vitalized structure of the whole system, 
 and cannot be paralyzed. 
 
 The following plan of treatment would have been proper for Mr. Greeley, 
 and has been invariably successful in similar cases, in the hands of Hygienic 
 physicians : He should have had a warm bath, just prolonged enough to 
 bring the blood well to the surface, and then put to bed in a quiet, well- 
 lighted and well-ventilated room, of an even and agreeable temperature. 
 His feet should have been kept constantly warm with bottles of hot water, 
 bags of sand, heated bricks, or something similar. So long as the head was 
 hot and painful a cool wet cloth should have been applied to the forehead 
 and face, covering the eyes so as to favor sleep. If the head was affected 
 at any time with neuralgic or intermitting pains, without heat, warm wet 
 cloths (fomentations) should have been applied until relief was obtained, 
 and then the cool wet cloth resumed. All visitors should have been excluded. 
 Nothing is more pernicious in such cases than meddlesome attentions, 
 the constant calls of friends and neighbors, frequent interviewings of report- 
 ers, constant quizzing of curiosity -seekers, and perpetual examinations of 
 physicians in watching the ever-changing phases of the multitudinous 
 diagnoses. Mr. Greeley had enough of these annoyances to account for the 
 M taking off," to say nothing of the abominable drugging. He should not 
 have had but a single watcher, lest whispering might disturb him, and 
 even that watcher should have occupied an adjacent apartment— never the 
 same room ; for in such cases of " extreme nervous prostration," the mere 
 presence of another in the room may prevent the all-important sleep. 
 
 How different was the management in Mr. Greeley's case ! The physi- 
 cians would let him have no peace. Friends and neighbors were annoying 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 159 
 
 him continually. He was transported "from pillar to post and tested 
 and experimented on till the last breath. "Did he know this person?" 
 " Could he recognize Mr. Weed?" Did he know he was insane ? Was 
 he conscious of mania or paralysis ? The two latter questions were proba- 
 bly not asked, but they are no more absurd than those which were asked. 
 No wonder the tormented sufferer lost all power of normal recognition, and 
 could only gibber incoherent phrases as one does in delirium tremens : "I 
 died when I was born, and was born when I died." Left to himself, I 
 repeat, Horace Greeley would have slept ; and if his sleeping had not been 
 disturbed, as it should not have been, he would in due time have awakened, 
 and then, if his vital organs had been so exhausted that death was inevitable, 
 he would have entered the dark valley of the shadowy land, in the full 
 possession and use of every power and faculty of the immortal mind, as all 
 persons do who die a " natural death," 
 
 The doctors did indeed recognize the maxim, "sleep or death," as 
 applicable to Mr. Greeley's case. And now let us see how they tried to 
 put him to sleep. Dr. Krackowizer, who first took the patient in hand, gave 
 him, according to the Philadelphia Press, "energetic" treatment. The 
 New York Sun of Dec. 6, tells us that this energetic treatment consisted of 
 thirty grains of bromide of potassium daily. Verily it was energetic. Dr. 
 Krackowizer claims that this was a moderate dose. Let us see what the 
 highest authority {United States Dispensatory, page 1 152) says of this drug : 
 " When given in large doses (five drachms daily) M. Rames found it to 
 produce a peculiar intoxication, attended with torpor and drowsiness. In 
 one case this condition was attended by an insensibility so complete that 
 the puncture of the skin with a suture needle was not felt, and the titillation 
 of the conjunctiva and fauces with a feather produced neither winking nor 
 a desire to vomit." 
 
 Dr. Krackowizer says the patient was more quiet for several hours after 
 taking the first dose. No doubt. But it was the quiet of apoplectic stupor, 
 instead of the quiet of recuperating sleep. All of the salts of potassium, 
 (nitre, tartar emetic, etc.) are among the most debilitating agents of the 
 materia medica. A few grains too many, administered in a single dose, 
 have frequently occasioned death. True, many persons can bear, without 
 dying, and without appreciable stupor, many times the quantity that Mr. 
 Greeley is reputed to have taken. But in his condition of extreme nervous 
 prostration, a small dose of an extremely depressing medicine mav have 
 had a great effect. 
 
 Dr. Hammond thought the treatment should have been just the reverse 
 — stimulation. The celebrated Dr. Brown -Sequard, from Paris, who didn't 
 "cure the Hon. Charles Sumner," thought Mr. Greeley had "paralysis of 
 the base and top brain." Dr. Hammond said this could not possibly have 
 been the case ; and in his opinion the disease was just the opposite — "in- 
 flammation of the membranes and cortical substance. " Dr. Brown-Sequard 
 
i6o 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 said that one side of Mr. Greeley was paralyzed. Dr. Hammond states 
 that this was not the case. Dr Choate, who had the patient m lbs house 
 for several days, refuses to say anything abo^t the manner in which he 
 treated him. Dr. Brown, of Bloomingdale Asylum, refused to tell the Sun 
 reporter anything definite. And is this all the people are to know of Mr. 
 Greeley's sickness and treatment from his five physicians ? Perhaps it is 
 none of the people's business Possibly it may be altogether a private affair 
 between the disagreeing doctors and the unfortunate patient But the cir- 
 cumstances are vividly suggestive of the inquiry, whether society exists for 
 the benefit of the medical profession, or whether the medical profession 
 should exist for the benefit of society ? 
 
 There is one other view of this case which concerns all persons who are 
 liable to fall into the hands of die physicians. It is the usual, almost uni- 
 versal practice of the medical profession, to give persons in Mr. Greeley's 
 condition, and all patients who are feeble or prostrated, alcoholic stimulants. 
 Indeed, stimulation and alcohol have come to be very nearly correlative 
 terms. Dr Hammond thought stimulants should have been administered 
 to Mr Greeley instead of bromide of potassium. Perhaps they were by the 
 other physicians, who keep their own secrets Be this as it may, there is a 
 fatal delusion abroad on this subject of alcoholic medication To Mr. 
 Greeley it was of no sort of consequence whether he took the recognized 
 stimulant or the admitted depressant. Each is equally life exhausting. 
 The stimulation of alcohol is nothing more nor less than a feverish disturb- 
 ance, which has been mistaken for "supporting vitality." Alcoholic 
 medicines are almost universally prescribed, because they augment the heat 
 of the body and increase the circulation of the blood. But the truth is, 
 they do not do it. They simply occasion a disturbance of circulation and 
 temperature, and so does bromide of potassium. After a dose of alcohol 
 some parts of the body will be warmer and others colder (as in all fevers), 
 and some organs will have more circulation and others less (as in all fevers 
 also). But the sum total of circulation and temperature is actually dimin- 
 ished, as in all febrile diseases. It is time this matter was understood by 
 physicians, and they would understand it if they would look at the facts on 
 > record without prejudice. Dr. B. VV. Richardson, of London, has demon- 
 strated, by a series of careful and elaborate experiments, that all forms of 
 alcoholic liquors are just the reverse of stimulants, so far as the whole force 
 of the circulation, and the whole amount of animal temperature are con- 
 cerned. Directly or indirectly they waste vital power, as every other poi- 
 son does, whether the person who swallows it is sick or well. Hygienic 
 physicians never administer stimulants m cases of debility, prostration, or 
 u running down " after fevers, and that is one of the principal reasons why 
 their patients so geneially recover.