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the spring, and the least at the autumnal season; and he infers, that the greater quantity of effête material during the summer months leads to the frequency of diarrhoea and intestinal diseases.

Amidst the multitudinous occupations of ordinary life there are some which tend in a greater degree than others to induce gastric complaints. Sedentary pursuits, especially when associated with late hours, and with pressure upon the stomach, greatly impair healthy digestion; and too often the necessities of the system are disregarded, and insufficient time allowed for meals, or they are taken at too long intervals. Again, several hours spent in a hot and oppressive atmosphere, containing an excess of carbonic acid, produces a sense of exhaustion and oppression, and the organic functions become less energetic. Some professional duties involve great irregularity as to the hours at which food is taken, and the strong and vigorous system can alone bear with these repeated disturbances without injury.

As to numerous mechanical occupations, some are injurious from pressure upon the scrobiculus cordis, and from constrained position, as with the shoemaker, the tailor, the hand-loom weaver; in others the air is loaded with dust, but in these the respiratory organs suffer more severely than the digestive; and, lastly, the exhaled fumes may be of a poisonous character, as with lead, mercury, phosphorus, &c.

Many of those whose trade requires the tasting of

cheese, butter, sugar, &c., become affected with troublesome dyspepsia. In general, an out-door occupation is better than one requiring confinement; and that which is connected with vigorous exercise is better than one which demands a constrained position.

Another valuable agent in affording relief to the symptoms of functional disease of the stomach is change of scene. The mental effect produced by travelling tends in a powerful degree to act upon the functions of organic life. The locality may be really less healthy than the home, but the change is beneficial; the diet may be less digestible, but it is more easily assimilated; and it often happens that, when the thoughts continually revert to an organ affected with apparent or with real disease, anything that will draw the attention into other channels promotes cure or relief. Still more marked is the beneficial effect of change, when the anxieties of professional and commercial life are left behind, and when the confined atmosphere of a large town is exchanged for the invigorating influence of sea or mountain air.

In some

Lastly, we must refer to the ordinary circumstances of the dwelling as greatly affecting digestion. cases, we almost involuntarily ask ourselves, How can any one live in rooms so over-heated and ill-ventilated ?— with a deficient quantity of oxygen gas to renovate, and an excess of the excreted carbonic acid-it may be with the impurities of town gas, added to the defect of a

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TREATMENT OF DISEASE OF THE STOMACH.

small sleeping apartment. The strength becomes impaired, and a relief to the sense of exhaustion is often attempted by the use of alcoholic stimulants, which still further interfere with sound digestion.

Having made these brief remarks as to the general treatment, we pass on to those measures which directly affect the stomach.

CHAPTER V.

ON THE REMEDIES FOR INDIGESTION, AND THEIR ABUSE.

It would almost seem that during the last few years there is a mania for new remedies, and that the charm of novelty casts into disrepute those means which had previously been found of an efficacious character.

The remedies we possess are more than sufficient if we knew how rightly to use them; and we are able to effect more by regulating the physiological conditions of digestion, than by confining ourselves to the mere administration of medicines.

The remedies of diseases of the stomach may be divided into four classes.

1. Those which regulate the work the stomach has to perform.

2. Those which increase the digestive power by the addition of some of those agents, chemical or otherwise, which are naturally in operation during the digestive process..

3. Those remedies which remove the impediments of digestion.

4. Those general remedies which only act upon the

stomach in a secondary manner; but to this latter class we have already referred in the last chapter.

In the first class of remedies for gastric diseasenamely, those which regulate the work the stomach has to perform-we find agents more powerful than any other in counteracting diseased action and functional irregularities. The numerous questions suggested by the requirements of the system as to diet and exercise become doubly important during functional disturbance, but there are several facts to be borne in mind which it may be well to notice en passant. Digestion must be regarded as not confined merely to the stomach, for it really commences in the mouth, and extends beyond the stomach. Starchy substances begin to undergo chemical change as soon as they are incorporated with the saliva; and although it is said that this change continues in the stomach itself, in that viscus it is rather nitrogenous food that undergoes solution. It seems probable also that the gastric juice is especially secreted under the stimulus of food, or from the intermitting action of the vaso-motor nerve. The experiments and observations made on Alexis St. Martin are most interesting on this subject, in whom an accidental perforation through the parieties of the stomach enabled Dr. Beaumont to watch these otherwise hidden processes, and a table was the result of his research, showing the length of time each substance required for its solution; but this knowledge is a very imperfect guide in the treatment of

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