The responsibilities and anxieties of active business life are apt at times to react unfavourably upon digestion, producing dyspepsia, headache, constipation, and biliousness. As a rule, there are few patients less willing to listen to advice in regard to diet and habits of life than the overworked business man engaged in the strife of active competition and with large financial interests at stake. He expects a dinner pill or laxative or the latest fashionable "tonic" to counteract the persistent violation of the simplest dietetic and hygienic laws, and, obtaining temporary relief, goes on overtaxing his alimentary canal, liver, and nervous system, laying the foundation of more serious ills, such as lithaemia, arterio-sclerosis, or possibly gout, gravel, or cirrhosis. The prevalence of chronic Bright's disease and neurasthenia in this country is by some climcians of large experience attributed to such causes. Imperfectly oxidised waste materials in the circulation may irritate kidneys and vascular system alike, and long-continued excitation eventually results in structural changes.

While prescribing remedies for individual symptoms the physician should not neglect to give wholesome counsel concerning diet, and such advice, however little heeded by itself, will sometimes be regarded as an essential part of other remedial measures, and accepted accordingly. The too hasty consumption of food, the neglect of securing proper action of the bowels, and carrying the concerns and worries of the counting-house to the table, combined with loss of sleep and of outdoor exercise, are the principal difficulties which this class of patients must contend against. Three good meals a day should be eaten. The breakfast should be substantial, comprising meat or eggs or fish with some cereal and fresh fruit; and dinner should be the last meal of the day, eaten preferably late - at half past six or seven o'clock - allowing an interval before the meal for recreation or diversion.

The lunch should be the lightest meal of the day, for the reason that it is difficult for many to take it always at a fixed hour, and still more difficult to allow sufficient time for due mastication and digestion. Sydney Smith once said, referring to the bad habit of hasty eating, that " many a man digs his grave with his teeth." It is not necessary, nor is it advisable, to eat meat three times a day, and many of these patients who are made dyspeptic by eating meat and vegetables together find that they have less flatulence and discomfort after meals if they take these classes of foods independently, eating meat and no vegetables or sugars at one meal, and vegetables without meat at another. The reason for this should be explained to them - namely, that carbohydrates, digested only by alkaline saliva and pancreatic fluid, may interfere with the acid digestion of animal food in the stomach. The luncheon should consist, therefore, of simple farinaceous food with one or two plainly cooked vegetables or a salad and a relish of some sort.

Alcoholic stimulants of any kind are not required, except to counteract exceptional fatigue, and, as a rule, these patients are better without their habitual use. If allowed, they should be drunk at dinner only. Malt liquors taken at luncheon are apt to cause drowsiness and dulness in the afternoon.

As adjuncts to the dietetic treatment other measures should not be neglected. Cold bathing with vigorous rubbing is desirable on rising, and an occasional Russian or Turkish bath may be serviceable if there is a tendency to heavily loaded urine and biliousness. Exercise in the open air is very important. Golfing is of value, but too much walking is fatiguing. Bicycling is much better. It furnishes more active exercise and diverts the mind; but horseback riding is preferable, even if it can be indulged in but once a week.

The bowels should be kept active, and fresh fruit and abundant draughts of pure water are the best means for this purpose.