5679. Dyspepsia

5679.    Dyspepsia. If a man wishes to get rid of dyspepsia, he must give his stomach and brain less to do. It will be of no service to follow any particular regimen - to live on chaff bread or any such stuff - to weigh his food, etc., so long as the brain is in a constant state of excitement. Let that have proper rest, and the stomach will perform its functions. But if he pass 10 or 12 hours a day in his office or counting-room, and take no exercise, his stomach will inevitably become paralyzed; and if he puts nothing into it but a cracker a day, it will not digest it. In many cases it is the brain that is the primary cause. Give that delicate organ some rest. Leave your business behind you when you go to your home. Do not sit down to your dinner with your brows knit, and your mind absorbed in casting up interest accounts. Never abridge the usual hours of sleep. Take more or less of exercise in the open air every day. Allow yourself 6ome innocent recreation. Eat moderately, slowly, and of just what you please. If any particular dish disagrees with you, however, never touch it or look at it. Do not imagine that you must five on rye bread or oat meal porridge; a reasonable quantity of nutritious food is essential to the mind as well as the body. Above all, banish all thoughts of the subject. If you have any treatises on dyspepsia, domestic medicines, etc., put them directly out of your reach. If you are constantly talking and thinking about dyspepsia, you will surely have it. Endeavor to forget that you have a stomach. Keep a clear conscience; live temperately, regularly, cleanly; be industrious, too, but avoid excess in that, as in all other things.

5680. Artificial Digestion

5680.    Artificial Digestion. A London physician, Dr. Marcet, has announced a process by which natural digestion is imitated by artificial means, and solid food may thereby be prepared for invalids. Dr. Marcet takes 58 grains muriatic acid having a specific gravity of 1.1496; 15 grains of pepsin - the organic principle procured from the stomach of a pig or other animal. Diluted in a pint of water and added to a pound of raw meat, the whole is allowed to simmer over a water-bath at about the temperature of the body, 98° Fahr. "When the meat is by this means sufficiently broken up, it is strained, and the acid neutralized by 81 grains of bicarbonate of soda. The product is of a most agreeable character, easily digested and vastly more nutritious than beef tea. Where pepsin cannot be obtained, the doctor has found strips of calves' stomach answer very well.

5681. Dick's Cure for Dyspepsia

5681.     Dick's Cure for Dyspepsia. Mix together 1/2 ounce bicarbonate of soda; 2 drachms aromatic spirits of ammonia; 6 drachms compound tincture of gentian; 6 drachms tincture of henbane; 2 drachms tincture of ginger; 3 drops creosote; 1/2 ounce ginger syrup, and 3 ounces water. A table-spoonful taken after each meal will cause a speedy cure.