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present day have ceased to follow the starvation system, as if child-bearing were a state of active disease. In most instances, however, it is well not to excite the system by a too generous diet, nor by stimulants, whilst absolute rest of mind and body is the state most conducive to speedy restoration. The activity of digestion during lactation is often very remarkable, and a generous diet is to many persons essential, if nursing is to continue.

Although too much stress has sometimes been laid upon substances as likely to be injurious to the newborn babe if partaken of by the mother, there is no doubt that the milk is very quickly changed by both food and medicine, and the infant may be in this way influenced beneficially or otherwise. As to medicines, saline aperients taken by the mother become absorbed into her blood, and enter the milk, the infant thereby suffering pain and diarrhoea. Opium is said also to influence the child, but this has doubtless been exaggerated. In an instance of a lady a few weeks after confinement to whom the hyposulphite of soda had been given in solution to relieve excessive flatulence, the medicine, in itself nearly tasteless, soon showed its character by producing sulphurous eructation, so that the mother maintained she had taken sulphur, and the infant suffered griping pain and vomiting, the vomited milk also smelling of sulphur. Numerous instances might be adduced to show how easily the infant is

thus affected, although the parent might be quite unconscious of any disturbance in her own system.

Each period of life has its own peculiarity stamped upon it, and when the natural rules of health are broken through, the result is soon experienced in a general disturbance of the system. These periods may be regarded as climacteric in their character; gradually the boundary lines are passed as years revolve, and each succeeding step is attained. The term climacteric is often especially made to that time in female life when menstruation ceases. Andral and Gavarret have stated that the carbonic acid evolved during the catamenial years remains the same, and on the cessation that there is for a time a slight increase of carbonic acid evolved. However this may be, there is no doubt that a marked change in the system takes place, and symptoms are produced due to this organic alteration. The gastro-intestinal tract sympathizes in the changes as well as the nervous and circulatory functions: headache, sense of oppression, flushes of heat, throbbing of the heart, sometimes irritability of the stomach and bowels, are often induced. The time ranges from 45 to about 53, and imperceptibly passes into a condition of more uniform health; then for several years an almost stationary condition is attained, gradually passing into the period of old age.

In men the commencement of old age is oftentimes marked by indications of change that have also received

the name climacteric, but commencing at a somewhat later period, 53 to 60 or from 56 to 63-a time of unsettled health-at the close of which a sort of equilibrium is again attained, unless organic disease have already sapped the remaining strength.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE GENERAL SYMPATHY OF THE STOMACH IN DISEASE.

It is the tendency of the clinical study of any isolated class of diseases, or of the affections of any particular organ, to exclude the consideration of other portions of the body, as if one part could be separated from the other. The nervous system is so connected with every individual structure that it sympathizes with changes in them, and may be thrown into a state of general disturbance by a comparatively trifling injury. The important function of respiration becomes affected when there is general febrile excitement; and in some functional diseases of the nervous system the respiration becomes as rapid as the pulse. Again, the central organ of the circulation, the heart, is equally susceptible of changes induced by sympathy with other structures; but it is not the mere fact of organic and functional sympathy to which we would draw attention, but to the equally important fact that the sympathy of one part with another is not equally intimate. This truth will be more apparent if we consider what is meant by this term of sympathy, and what are some of those means by which in the human frame it is brought about. By the word sympathy we mean "

that an organ of the body may become functionally disturbed by irritation of a structure external to itself: in this way severe pain and abnormal sensation may be induced in parts far removed from the original seat of disturbance. This sympathy will be generally found to be regulated by one of three things,-1st, it is in proportion to the direct nervous connection of one part with another; 2nd, it is in proportion to the connection of function; 3rd, it is in proportion to the mutual dependence of one organ on another for its vascular supply.

Amongst these sympathetic affections arising from disease of the stomach, we will first notice disturbances in the cerebro-spinal system, and these sympathetic symptoms may be arranged as follows:

Affections of the cerebrum, by which the mind, the memory, and the perceptions are changed.

Of the senses, so that the sight is perverted, the hearing disturbed, the smell changed, taste rendered unnatural, and ordinary feeling altered from its normal condition.

Of the spinal system, so that irregular muscular movements are produced by gastric irritation.

Affections of the cranial and spinal nerves, inducing pain or numbness in the head itself.

The mind is dependent for the fulfilment of its ordinary phenomena upon the functional integrity of other parts. The organism by which the mind operates

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