When the stomach loaths victuals, the mouth is slimy, has a bitterish taste, and attended with sour belching, and the victuals siting heavy on the stomach, nothing is preferable to a vomit.
This I know has also been carried into abuse, as well as many other good medicines.——Yet that should be no rule; for if a vomit is properly and timely given, it will ever be attended with success. Take here the following direction for a foul stomach.
First take a vomit, and work it well off with bare luke warm water; then take every night, or when going to rest, a dose of stomach powder (M). If the stomach seems very weak, add a few drops of the essential oil of peppermint (U), which will soon convince you of the good effects.
If you require a stimulant in the morning, take Turlington’s balsam (W), about a tea spoonful in a glass of wine, previously put on a lump of sugar, that it may the better incorporate: which is a good stomachic, and ever preferable to the customary bitters.
Dram drinking is another pernicious custom, whereby many have been sent to eternity long before the period of life prescribed by nature; and of which I would advise every man, who has the least regard for his health, to beware, as of a deadly poison.
On the whole, the want of appetite is what many complain of without reason. Some fancy themselves very bad, because they cannot eat their breakfast; those I would advise to stay till dinner time; others again have no appetite for their dinner, unless they wet their stomach with a glass of Stoughton, or some other bitters: Those should eat nothing in the morning, or else stay till supper time.——In short, nature should be consulted, both in the state of health, as well as in diseases, and her salutary dictates should be followed.
The custom of seasoning victuals with strong stimulating condiments is often prejudicial, and nothing should be used with more moderation; for though it may warm and stimulate the stomach, yet, it frequently gives cause to great weaknesses, and generally are the primitive causes of chronic distempers; as it hurries on the chylefaction, and thence is apt to feed the blood with many acrimonious humours.
This little dissertation on depraved appetite I hope will suffice, and doubt not if attended to, that health and longevity will become the intimate acquaintances of the man who wishes to enjoy their blessings.
Of the Colic.
If we consider the length of the ailmentary canal from the mouth to the anus, namely six times the length of the subject they belong to; and if we consider the delicacy of its substance, as also, the office for which it is ordained; we shall not at all wonder, that so many disorders are incident to mankind in that part.