GENERAL HEALTH HINTS 691 



especially with children, care should be taken to in- 

 struct the child to breathe through the nose, and when 

 it goes to sleep the lips should be gently closed. By 

 perseverance, the habit may be cured. 



In many cases, mouth-breathing is due to obstruc- 

 tion of the nostrils by morbid growths. These cases 

 require the attention of a physician who has made a 

 special study of this class of diseases. 



COFFEE AND DYSPEPSIA 



M. Laven, a French medical authority, in a paper 

 read before the Societe de Biologie, and published in 

 the Rev. Med., states that "coifee, instead of accelerat- 

 ing the digestive process of the stomach, as is often 

 supposed, rather tends to impede it. When thirty 

 grams of coffee, diluted in one hundred and fifty of 

 water, are given to a dog, which is killed five hours 

 and a half afterward, the stomach is found pale, its 

 mucous surface being anemic, and the vessels of its 

 external membrane contracted. The whole organ ex- 

 hibits a marked appearance of anemia. Coffee thus 

 determining anemia of the mucous membrane, prevent- 

 ing rather than favoring vascular congestion, and op- 

 posing rather than facilitating the secretion of gastric 

 juice, how comes it that the sense of comfort is pro- 

 cured for so many who are accustomed to take coffee 

 after a meal? A repast, in fact, produces, in those 

 whose digestion is torpid, a heaviness of the intellectual 

 faculties and embarrassment of the power of thinking ; 

 and these effects, and the disturbance of the head, are 

 promptly dissipated by the stimulant effect which the 



