better, scents better, barks better, and comes in at night in better shape. And then, if we walk home, he gets pretty well rested and has his ‘breakfast’ before a great while; or, if we ride, he has it as soon as we get home; and (if it is cold weather) I let him lie in the sitting-room an hour or two after he eats, and then he will go to his kennel and sleep all night, and without trembling; and he turns out next morning in good shape for another tramp, if called on.” “Do you ‘fix’ yourself in the same manner?” I could but ask. “Not much,” he replied; “I eat before I start, and take a lunch along; but I don’t know but the old dog has the best of it, after all.” As a matter of fact, the aged dog is like a sprightly youth still, while his master, at middle-age, is a decrepit old man.
[65] This is a characteristic of most hunting dogs—not the exception. It is not that they know more about dietetics than their masters, for I do not think they do, but, gluttons as they are, they “rather hunt than eat.”
The importance of rest after meals has never been fully appreciated by people in general. Even those who advocate the need of it, have usually,—perhaps because of the difficulties in the way of demanding more,—asked for only a half, or a whole hour; while it is the popular belief that “exercise after eating promotes digestion,” and the fact is cited that Sunday is, to the laborer, the worst day of all the week,—a day of leisure, affording ample time for digestion, if that is all that is required. But that is not all. The “bad feeling” which comes on after the second meal on Sunday—the “Sunday headache,” of which so many complain—results from the radical change of habit from the six days of hard labor: accustomed as he is to digesting a large part of his three
meals together, at night, after he has earned them, physiologically speaking,—that is, after his labor has provided the digestive fluids in the blood, by means of which his food is dissolved, and made ready for absorption into the circulation,—when Sunday, with its leisure, and possibly even more than usually excessive indulgence, comes, instead of having the blood diverted to the general muscular system, as the result of active labor, it is called to the stomach and the circulation becomes overcharged with nutritive material. Hence lethargy, tendency to sleep, headache, etc.
The fact is,
EXERCISE AFTER EATING
by preventing digestion, often delays or modifies the ill-feeling which would otherwise be experienced shortly after over-indulgence at the table. Hence gentle exercise in the open air will prove the least of two evils; an emetic, the best of all remedies. The liquids[66] being to a great extent absorbed, plethora is prevented or delayed because the solids remain undigested in the stomach! But this solid residue, favored by the internal temperature, begins to ferment, after a time, and causes more or less irritation and congestion of the mucous lining of the stomach, which gives rise to the sensation popularly called “hunger”; and thus every few hours, and when the patient impatiently
awaits the call to dinner and thinks himself most in need of food, he is, in fact, in the very worst condition to take it. Ninety-five persons in every hundred have this disease (for it is nothing less than chronic dyspepsia) throughout life. The fact that the meal affords immediate relief argues nothing against this position; it is the seventy-five or eighty per cent. of water contained in and taken with the meal that relieves the congestion. It forms a poultice, so to say, for the congested mucous membrane of the stomach; but unfortunately it can not, as when applied externally upon a throbbing sore thumb, for example, be removed when it becomes dry. We see this disease at its worst in infancy, when meals are most frequent and excessive.
[66] In case of an ordinary “mixed meal,” water composes something near four-fifths of all; solids, pure and simple, one-fifth. Even roast beef is about three-fourths water, and vegetables the same.
Jules Virey settled the question, as it seems to me, regarding the effects of work after eating. He took two dogs of same size, age, and general physique; gave both a fast-day, and then treated them to a square meal, alike in quantity and variety. One was sent to his kennel, while the other was permitted to follow the carriage which conveyed the doctor on his rounds. After the coach-dog had had two hours and a half of (not vigorous, but gentle) exercise, and immediately on his return, the doctor had both dogs slain and dissected. The kennel-dog had thoroughly digested his breakfast,—not a trace of it was found in his stomach,—while with the other, the work of digestion had not even begun; the mutton cubes and potato chips remained intact, precisely as when first eaten. It is evident from this that the rule, “Never eat until