315. Thus food should not be taken immediately after severe mental labor, protracted speaking, continued singing, or laborious manual toil; as the digestive organs will be in a state of comparative debility, and consequently unfit to digest food. From thirty to sixty minutes should elapse, after the cessation of severe employment, before food is taken. This time may be spent in cheerful amusement or social conversation.
Observation. The practice of students and accountants going immediately from severe mental labor to their meals, is a pernicious one, and a fruitful cause of indigestion and mental debility. The custom of farmers and mechanics 147 hurrying from their toil to the dinner-table, does much to cause dyspepsia and debility among these classes in community.
313. Should the condition of the system be regarded in taking food? 314. When should food not be taken? Why? What is the result when an organ has been in vigorous action? 315. After the cessation of severe toil, how much time should expire before eating? What is one cause of indigestion among students and accountants?
316. Severe mental or manual toil should not be entered upon immediately after eating. As there is an increased amount of blood and nervous fluid supplied to the stomach and alimentary canal during the digestion of food, a deficiency exists in other organs. This is evinced by a slight paleness of the skin, and a disinclination to active thought and exercise. Under such circumstances, if either the mind, vocal organs, or muscles are called into energetic action, there will be an abstraction of the necessary amount of blood and nervous fluid from the stomach, and the process of digestion will be arrested. This will not only cause disease of the digestive organs, but chyle will not be formed, to nourish the system.
Illustration. An English gentleman fed two dogs upon similar articles of food. He permitted one to remain quiet in a dark room; the other he sent in pursuit of game. At the expiration of one hour, he had both killed. The stomach of the dog that had remained quiet was nearly empty. The food had been properly changed and carried forward into the alimentary canal. In the stomach of the dog that had used his muscles in chasing game, the aliment remained nearly unaltered.
317. The same principle may be applied to the action of the organs of man. If his mind or muscles act intensely soon after eating, the stomach will not be sufficiently stimulated by blood and nervous fluid to change the food in a suitable period. The Spanish practice of having a “siesta,” or sleep after dinner, is far better than the custom of the 148 Anglo-Saxon race, who hurry from their meals to the field, shop, or study, in order to save time, which, in too many instances, is lost by a sense of oppression and suffering which soon follows.
316. Why should not severe manual or mental exertion be made immediately after eating? State the illustration. 317. May this principle be applied to the action of the human stomach? What is said of the Spanish custom of resting after dinner?
318. In some instances of good health, the infringement of this organic law may seem to pass with impunity, but Nature, though lenient, sooner or later asserts her claims. The practice of the Spaniard may be improved by indulging, for an hour before resuming toil, in moderate exercise of the muscular system, conjoined with agreeable conversation and a hearty laugh, as this facilitates digestion, and tends to “shake the cobwebs from the brain.”
Observation. No judicious teamster drives his animals as soon as they have swallowed their food, but gives them a period for repose, so that their food may be digested, and their systems invigorated. In this way, he secures the greatest amount of labor from his team.
319. The mind exerts an influence upon the digestive process. This is clearly exhibited, when an individual receives intelligence of the loss of a friend or of property. He may at the time be sitting before a plentiful board, with a keen appetite; but the unexpected news destroys it, because the excited brain withholds its stimulus. This shows the propriety of avoiding absorbing topics of thought at meals, as labored discussions and matters of business; but substitute cheerful and light conversation, enlivening wit, humor, the social intercourse of family and friends; these keep the brain in action, but not in toil. Under such circumstances, the blood and nervous fluid flow freely, the work of digestion is readily commenced, and easily carried on.