20 Comments on Corpulency, 



Obesity — notwithstanding some fancifnl properties given to the 

 colon, as to the secretion of fat. Sir Anthony Carhsle says, 

 that long-continued experience has taught him that the first 

 effects of senility are to be traced to the stomach, and that many 

 incipient disorders are to be sought for in the evidence of the 

 stomach, and its dependencies. 



During the reign of nerves, camphor-julep and cordials were 

 in vogue. When the popular hypothesis about the liver pre- 

 vailed, mercurial drugs were lavished in a manner that made 

 Dr. Reynolds predict that calomel would be taken by the tea- 

 spoonful. '' Pe^j^icjarecep^s" perhaps prevented it. The chy- 

 lopoietic functions put in their claims ; and then every body 

 suddenly discovered that they had a stomach ! " Don't you 

 think," said an hypochondriac to me one day, '* that dyspepsia 

 has wonderfully increased of late !" adding, at the same time, 

 ** By the bye, what is dyspepsia ?" 



Although gastric disorders and gastric doctrines at present 

 engross the thoughts and employ the pens of all denominations 

 of persons, yet they are by no means novelties. The stomach 

 has been the subject of complaint from the earliest ages. The 

 rich man has complained that his stomach would not allow him 

 to eat any thing : the poor man, that it ate every thing, and 

 was never satisfied. — And the good Erasmus complained, that 

 in spite of all his Catholic propensities, his stomach would be 

 Lutheran ; — and, moreover, a very learned and ancient physi- 

 cian specifically treated this affair, in a grave work entitled 

 ** Ventriculi querelse et opprobia." In truth, it has been satis- 

 factorily proved, that in every stage of human life — health and 

 disease — pleasure and pain — and even life and death, are depen- 

 dent on the functions of the stomach. 



An old English adage says, " it is the stomach makes the legs 

 amble, and not the legs the stomach." Shakspeare knew its 

 importance and powers well : Fontenelle magnanimously avowed 

 that there was no enjoying Hfe without a good one — ^' pour bien 

 jouir de la vie il faut avoir un mauvais coeur, et un ban estomac ;'' 

 — and Serenus Samonicus many centuries before says, 



*' Qui slomachum regem totius corporis esse 

 Contendunt, vera niti ratione videntur." 



In the vagaries of modern philosophy, it contends for the seat 



