Dyspepsia has once been called the "American sickness," and although this may be a slander against which many of the inhabitants of our great republic might protest, bad digestion is a disease frequent enough among us to justify us in considering its causes and in ascertaining by what means this curse of modern civilization may be avoided. A Frenchman, under the title "La dyspepsie des gens d'esprit," in the Paris Revue Scientifique of August 18, shows how utterly disregarded are the sanitary rules at the dinners of well bred people in France; and an American lady in a recent edition of a well known New York daily humoristically enlarges upon the offenses committed against health by persons of her own sex while dining in the largest city of the United States. Speaking of the lunch of shop girls up town, the contributor to the American paper deprecates the fact that the young American girls employed in business houses at luncheon time live almost entirely on sweets and food that renders little or no nourishment, rather than procuring at the same cost a repast which, though perhaps less dainty, would be far better for their constitution. "Left to herself," the writer says, "Miss Saleslady, pretty and refined though she may be, day after day and day after day keeps her temper, and waits on her customers, leaning on a slim luncheon of pie and tea. 'It is sweet and nice,' pleaded one girl to me the other day, 'and it goes so much further than anything else.'

"'Not further than bread and milk' I urged, 'and it is surely not half as good for your complexion.'

"'Oh, but the other ladies would laugh at me well if they saw me eating bread and milk for my luncheon. I think myself a bit of something light and nice, like eclairs or a charlotte russe, is ever so much more ladylike and nice.'

"Heaven save the mark! What sort of flesh and blood do they make to put on the slender bones of a growing girl? How will they stand by her, when perhaps she leaves the shop and chooses the life of wife and mother? The answer is easy. When the pie-eating, cooky-feeding girl gets married, put it down in your note book: One more dyspeptic, peevish woman entered the lists of the unlovely."

The contributor to the French review, although also condemning the careless choice of food, more especially points out the evil consequences of eating too hastily; and though M. Julva directs his attack chiefly against the gens d'esprit, i.e., the well bred people of France who neglect the rules of health for politeness' sake, his words apply equally well to the American business man who sacrifices his health during luncheon to the "almighty dollar."

"The feverish activity of modern life," he says, "induces many people to abridge the duration of their repast, and, particularly, luncheon is taken too hastily - a practice the danger of which, as a cause of dyspepsia, cannot be overrated."

This practice might not be so dangerous if, during the short time which we dedicate to our midday meal, we would at least imitate the habit of the Japanese, whom politeness requires to be absolutely silent while eating. When they like a certain dish, they express their satisfaction by graceful gestures addressed to their host, but they think it would offend him if they open their mouth for anything else except eating.

Watch, on the other hand, one of our lawyers at luncheon. He has just dismissed his last client, at the moment when he should be already at court, and in order not to be too late he has to lunch in double quick time. He has to eat his viands without having time to masticate them, and he swallows his big pieces, washing them down with several glasses of wine and water, and hastens to his carriage almost without giving himself time to breathe, in order not to miss his call.

Look at a Parisian dining in town. French politeness forbids him to be silent like the Japanese, and also requires of him not to speak with his mouth full of food. And if this were not enough, French gallantry commands him to serve the ladies first, so that just about when they have finished, he may commence to eat. In addition to this, if he does not want to appear ill bred, he must reply to all their questions, which he would not be able to do if he did not gulp down his morsels unchewed. What wonder, then, that most men have to suffer from eating dinner in such a manner, while all discomfort could be avoided, if the viands were served to one guest after the other in succession?

We don't want to exaggerate. There are privileged stomachs which can stand all that. But there are many to which half-masticated food is a real poison.

The unconscious dyspeptic constitutes an extremely frequent variety. Dyspeptics rarely complain of suffering from the stomach; many of them will even say to you that their stomach is excellent. But let us remember the old fable of Menenius Agrippa: The whole organism suffers when the stomach is ill treated.

Premature calvity (baldness), some eruptions of acne (pustules of the skin), a slight dyspnoea (difficulty in breathing) when mounting stairs, a blush of heat on the cheeks a quarter of an hour after luncheon, a violent craving for smoking after the repast, a feeling of sleepiness, which, however, quickly fades toward ten o'clock in the evening, little inclination to work during the first hours after awakening in the morning, all these symptoms, or any part of them, show that you have before you a candidate of the disease known as bloating of the stomach or the gout. According to the wise enumeration of Moliere, who was evidently prompted by Renaudot, such a person begins with bradypepsia (slow digestion), then suffers from dyspepsia (bad digestion), afterward from apepsia (indigestion), and later lyentery (a lax or diarrhea in which food is discharged only half digested), and at the last the vicious circle is often completed by obesity, uric affections of the liver or bladder, and all the other diseases belonging to that class.