516 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



become more serious. Temporary relief is easily obtained by medi- 

 cine ; but if the unfortunate individual continues to blame his stom- 

 ach, and not the dietary he selects, the chances are that his troubles 

 will continue, or appear in some other form. At length, if unenlight- 

 ened on the subject, he becomes " a martyr to indigestion," and resigns 

 himself to the unhappy fate, as he terms it, of " the confirmed dys- 

 peptic." 



Such a victim may perhaps be surprised to learn that nine out of 

 ten persons so affected are probably not the subjects of any complaint 

 whatever, and that the stomach at any rate is by no means necessarily 

 faulty in its action in short, that what is popularly termed " indiges- 

 tion " is rarely a disease in any sense of the word, but merely the nat- 

 ural result of errors in diet. For most men it is the penalty of 

 conformity to the eating habits of the majority ; and a want of dis- 

 position or of enterprise to undertake a trial of simpler foods than 

 those around them consume probably determines the continuance of 

 their unhappy troubles. In many instances it must be confessed that 

 the complaint, if so it must be called, results from error, not in the 

 quality of the food taken, but in the quantity. Eating is an agreeable 

 process for most people, and under the influence of very small temp- 

 tation, or through undue variety furnishing a source of provocation 

 to the palate, a considerable proportion of nutritious material above 

 what is required by the system is apt to be swallowed. Then it is 

 also to be remembered that stomachs which vary greatly in their 

 capacity and power to digest may all nevertheless be equally healthy 

 and competent to exercise every necessary function. In like manner 

 we know that human brains which are equally sound and healthy 

 often differ vastly in power and in activity. Thus a stomach, which 

 would be slandered by a charge of incompetence to perform easily all 

 that it is in duty bound to accomplish, may be completely incapable 

 of digesting a small excess beyond that natural limit. Hence, with 

 such an organ an indigestion is inevitable when this limit is only 

 slightly exceeded. And so when temptations are considerable, and 

 frequently complied with, the disturbance may be, as it is with some, 

 very serious in degree. How very powerful a human stomach may 

 sometimes be, and how large a task in the way of digestion it may 

 sometimes perform without complaint, is known to those who have 

 had the opportunity of observing what certain persons with excep- 

 tional power are accustomed to take as food, and do take for a long 

 time apparently with impunity. But these are stomachs endowed 

 with extraordinary energy, and woe be to the individual with a digest- 

 ive apparatus of moderate power who attempts to emulate the per- 

 formance of a neighbor at table who perchance may be furnished with 

 such an effective digestive apparatus ! 



But, after all, let not the weaker man grieve overmuch at the un- 

 even lot which the gods seem to have provided for mortals here below 



