82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Violent bodily exercise when the stomach is full is a well-known 

 cause of disturbed digestion ; and in this case the disturbance seems 

 mechanical. The motions of the stomach cannot be favorably carried 

 on while its contents are tossed about by rapid movements of the 

 body ; for we know it is essential to the due solution of food that it 

 should be all in turn brought into contact with the stomach's surface 



A cold bath after a full meal will frequently disturb digestion ; 

 and a hot bath either of water or air will do so with still more cer- 

 tainty. Dyspepsia from warm and cold bathing occurs, in each case, 

 on the same principle, but for opposite reasons. It has been proved, 

 from observations on Alexis St. Martin, that congestion of the stom- 

 ach is most unfavorable to the secretion of gastric juice. Now, the 

 shock of cold bathing produces congestion, by driving the blood from 

 the surface of the body to the viscera ; on the other hand, a certain 

 flow of blood to the stomach is equally indispensable, and that would 

 be interfered with by the hot bath, because it draws the blood from 

 the viscera to the surface. Free bloodletting soon after a meal is 

 commonly succeeded by vomiting, and this affords another example of 

 the effect of sudden withdrawal of blood from the digestive organs. 



Dyspepsia has the widest range of all diseases because it forcns a 

 part of almost every other ; and some, as pulmonary consumption, are 

 in many instances preceded by it. In such cases, early attention to 

 the defects of nutrition would often avert a fatal issue. The gravest 

 forms of dyspepsia accompany organic changes in the alimentary tube 

 itself, as cancer and ulcer of the stomach. It cannot be affirmed that 

 simple dyspepsia does not sometimes shorten life, by producing an- 

 other disease, or even prove fatal of itself; yet it is certain that diges- 

 tion may be performed with difficulty for many years without more 

 serious results than proverbial suffering and discomfort. Causes and 

 Treatment of Imperfect Digestion, new edition. 







WOMAN AND POLITICAL POWER. 



By LUKE OWEN PIKE, M. A., 



FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



IT is not improbable that the present remarkable phase in woman's 

 history may have made its appearance, partly at least, through re- 

 action against the very common opinion that the male is the superior 

 sex. This idea, offensive as it is to all feminine sentiment, receives 

 its best illustration in the old fable, according to which, various parts 

 of the body, each being necessary to the rest, put in a claim, each, to 

 superiority. The truth is that in the sexes, as in the members, there 



