84. If the loss of appetite for breakfast arise from pregnancy—and sometimes it is one of the earliest symptoms—time will rectify it, and the appetite, without the necessity of a particle of medicine, will shortly, with its former zest, return.
85. A young married woman’s diet ought to be substantial, plain, and nourishing. She must frequently vary the kind of food, of meat especially, as also the manner of cooking it. Nature delights in variety of food, of air, and of exercise. If she were fed, for some considerable period, on one kind of meat, she could scarcely digest any other; and in time either a disordered or a diseased stomach would be likely to ensue. I have sometimes heard, with pain and annoyance, a patient advised to live on mutton-chops, and to have no other meat than mutton! Now this is folly in the extreme. Such an unfortunate patient’s stomach, in the course of time, would not be able to digest any other meat, and after awhile would have a difficulty in digesting even mutton-chops, and wretched and ruined health would to a certainty ensue.
86. Three substantial and nourishing meals a day will be sufficient. It is a mistaken notion to imagine that “little and often” is best. The stomach requires rest as much as, or more than, any other part of the body; and how, if food be constantly put into it, can it have rest? There is no part of the body more imposed and put upon than the human stomach:
“To spur beyond
Its wiser will the jaded appetite,—
Is this for pleasure? Learn a juster taste,
And know that temperance is true luxury.”
87. It is a mistaken notion, and injurious to health, for a young wife, or for any one else, to eat, just before retiring to rest, a hearty meat supper:
“Oppress, not nature sinking down to rest
With feasts too late, too solid, or too full.”