178 ANSWERS TO PRACTICAL QUESTIONS 



20. What is the best remedy ? 



Diet to give the organs rest, and active exercise to 

 arouse the secretions and the circulation. 



2 1. What is the practical use of hunger ? 



To prompt us to furnish the body with sufficient food. 



22. How can jugglers drink when standing on their 

 heads ? 



Because water does not fall into the stomach by its 

 own weight, but is conveyed thither from the mouth by 

 the contraction of the muscular bands of the oesophagus. 



consequence of your occasionally yielding to the temptations of " a little 

 supper." I see turkey and tongue in grief and terror. Macaroni fills me 

 with frantic alarm. I behold jelly and trifle follow in mute despair. O that 

 I had the power of standing beside my master, and holding his unreflecting 

 hand, as he thus prepares for my torment and his own ! Here, too, the old 

 mistaken notion about the need of something stimulating besets him, and 

 down comes a deluge of hot spirits and water, that causes me to writhe in 

 agony, and almost sends Gastric Juice off in the sulks to bed. Nor does the 

 infatuated man rest here. If the company be agreeable, one glass follows 

 another, while I am kept standing, as it were, with my sleeves tucked up, 

 ready to begin, but unable to perform a single stroke of work. 



" I feel that the strength which I ought to have at my present time of life has 

 passed from me. I am getting weak, and peevish, and evil-disposed. A com- 

 paratively small trouble sits long and sore upon me. Bile, from being my 

 servant, is becoming my master ; and a bad one he makes, as all good ser- 

 vants ever do. I see nothing before me but a premature old age of pains and 

 groans, and gripes and grumblings, which will, of course, not last over long ; 

 and thus I shall be cut short in my career, when I should have been enjoying 

 life's tranquil evening, without a single vexation of any kind to trouble me. 

 Were I of a revengeful temper, it might be a consolation to think that my 

 master the cause of all my woes must suffer and sink with me ; but I don't 

 see how this can mend my own case ; and, from old acquaintance, I am rather 

 disposed to feel sorry for him, as one who has been more ignorant and im- 

 prudent than ill-meaning. In the same spirit let rne hope that this true and 

 unaffected account of my case may prove a warning to other persons how 

 they use their stomachs ; for, they may depend upon it, whatever injustice 

 they do to us, in their days of health and pride, will be repaid to themselves in 

 the long-run our friend Madame Nature being a remarkably accurate ac- 

 countant, who makes no allowance for ignorance or mistakes." CHAMBERS' 

 Memoir of a Stomach. 



