SOME SPECIAL REGULATIVE PROCESSES $2? 



lubricate or oil the lining, so that the mucous membrane 

 may not suffer serious damage. In this way arises catarrh 

 of the stomach, which is very disagreeable, but is a pro- 

 tective and curative process. 



596. A man has painful gout in a joint; what is the 

 matter ? The man did not burn up by honest muscular 

 work the food he ate, and it turned into poisonous acid, 

 which collected in the loose spaces around the joint. The 

 natural regulative power of the body forces that man to 

 rest, by sending a pain every time he moves actively, in 

 order to prevent damaging the joint by moving it too 

 much while the inflammation is burning up the poison. If 

 the man were allowed to exert himself actively, uncon- 

 scious of the damage, the joint would soon be destroyed. 

 (Read note 3, page 330.) 



597. Indigestion is another trouble that is usually mis- 

 understood. If one suffers from "biliousness," the liver 

 is at once blamed, when usually the liver has nothing to 

 do with it. You learned that the condition, as a rule, re- 

 sults from taking food into the stomach out of all propor- 

 tion to the work its owner does ; or, in warm spring 

 weather, from eating enough to keep one warm in freezing 

 weather. Then follows a combination of symptoms which, 

 at a guess, is called biliousness, loss of appetite, nausea, 

 headache, loss of energy. The first symptom is sent be- 

 cause nature insists on giving the stomach a rest when it 

 is incapable of digesting ; the nausea may produce vomit- 

 ing to expel the offending substance. The headache and 

 loss of energy are to prevent exercise that would stir up 

 the circulation and distribute the poisons throughout the 

 body before the proper organs could dispose of them. 



598. One who is suffering from nervous exhaustion, 

 unable to do anything whatever, abhors the idea of 

 working or attending to business; but the presence of 

 this symptom is a protection. If the individual were not 



