IN HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. 177 



19. What makes a man " bilious ? " 



(See Hall's Health by Good Living, p. in, et seq.) 



The liver strains the bile out of the blood. This waste 

 matter is not withdrawn when the liver is inactive, and 

 hence the face and eyes become yellow the cclor of bile, 

 and the functions all become torpid. 



rule of temperance ; nay, there is scarcely a single meal which is altogether 

 what it ought to be. My life is therefore one of continual worry and fret ; I 

 am never allowed to rest from morning till night, and have not a moment in 

 the four-and-twenty hours that I can safely call my own. My greatest trial 

 takes place in the evening, when my master has dined. If you only saw what 

 a mess this said dinner is soup, fish, flesh, fowl, ham, rice, potatoes, table- 

 beer, sherry, tart, pudding, cheese, bread, all mixed up together. I am ac- 

 customed to the thing, so don't feel much shocked ; but my master himself 

 would faint at the sight. The slave of duty in all circumstances, I call in my 

 friend Gastric Juice, and we set to work with as much good-will as if we had 

 the most agreeable task in the world before us. But, unluckily, my master 

 has an impression very firmly fixed upon him that our business is apt to be 

 vastly promoted by an hour or two's drinking ; so he continues at table 

 among his friends, and pours down some bottle and a half of wine, perhaps of 

 various sorts, that bothers Gastric Juice and me to a degree which no one can 

 have any idea of. In fact, this said wine undoes our work almost as fast as 

 we do it, besides blinding and poisoning us poor servants into the bargain. 

 On many occasions I am obliged to give up my task for the time altogether ; 

 for while this vinous shower is going on I would defy the most vigorous 

 stomach in the world to make any advance in its business worth speaking of. 

 Sometimes things go to a mu ch greater length than at others ; and my master 

 will paralyze us in this manner for hours, not always, indeed, with wine, but 

 occasionally with punch, one ingredient of which the lemon is particularly 

 odious to us. All this time I can hear him jollifying away at a great rate, 

 drinking healths to his neighbors, and ruining his own. 



" I am a lover of early hours, as are my brethren generally. To this we are 

 very much disposed by the extremely hard work which we usually undergo 

 during the day. About ten o'clock, having, perhaps, at that time got all our 

 labors past, and feeling fatigued and exhausted, we like to sink into repose, 

 not to be again disturbed till next morning at breakfast-time. Well, how it 

 may be with others I can't tell ; but so it is, that my master never scruples to 

 rouse me up from my first sleep, and give me charge of an entirely new meal, 

 after I thought I was to be my own master for the night. This is a hardship 

 of the most grievous kind. Only imagine me, after having gathered in my 

 coal, drawn on my night-cap, and gone to bed, called up and made to take 

 charge of a quantity of stuff which I know I shall not be able to get off my 

 hands all night ! Such, O mankind, are the woes which befall our tribe i* 

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