The unconscious dyspeptic constitutes an extremely frequent variety. Dyspeptics rarely complain of suffering from the stomach; many of them will even say to you that their stomach is excellent. But let us remember the old fable of Menenius Agrippa: The whole organism suffers when the stomach is ill treated.
Premature calvity (baldness), some eruptions of acne (pustules of the skin), a slight dyspnœa (difficulty in breathing) when mounting stairs, a blush of heat on the cheeks a quarter of an hour after luncheon, a violent craving for smoking after the repast, a feeling of sleepiness, which, however, quickly fades toward ten o'clock in the evening, little inclination to work during the first hours after awakening in the morning, all these symptoms, or any part of them, show that you have before you a candidate of the disease known as bloating of the stomach or the gout. According to the wise enumeration of Moliere, who was evidently prompted by Renaudot, such a person begins with bradypepsia (slow digestion), then suffers from dyspepsia (bad digestion), afterward from apepsia (indigestion), and later lyentery (a lax or diarrhea in which food is discharged only half digested), and at the last the vicious circle is often completed by obesity, uric affections of the liver or bladder, and all the other diseases belonging to that class.
Unfortunately, we are still far from the time when the public will appreciate that "prevention is better than cure." Perhaps this fundamental principle of health will be honored during the 20th century. At present it certainly is not. Meanwhile, those who have ruined their health by modern city life take recourse for their cure to a holiday, hasten to places where they find mineral waters, or try laxatives or milk diet to improve their condition. They wish to do something for their health once or twice a year. How much better, if they had not been acting against their health all the year round.
It is extremely difficult to teach our people to eat healthily. You will find no difficulty to persuade them to take medicine. People have always time to swallow a pill, but you will certainly have trouble to teach them to chew with leisure. How many people who find time every year to spend the season at Vichy will tell you it is quite impossible for them to spend five minutes more every day at luncheon time. And nevertheless they would regain these few minutes a day with interest, if they would avoid that host of maladies which will stop them one day in the midst of their occupations. I have seen a good many of my clients getting entirely rid of their rheumatic pains and gout and ceasing to suffer from sleepless nights by observing the following simple rules.
In order to chew meat conveniently—and this is one of the main points—one must accustom one's self never to mix meat and bread in the same mouthful. Take a small mouthful, chew it about thirty times, then swallow that part which has been reduced to pulp, and so on until all has been masticated. In doing this you will soon find out that roasted and broiled beef or mutton requires a longer trituration than boiled meats or stews; you will also perceive that fish is more easily masticated than meat, and you will finally understand why certain dyspeptics are forced to limit their food to fish, eggs, and milk diet. In fact, milk diet serves no other purpose than to furnish a perfectly digestible nourishment.
One of the indirect and unforeseen benefits of a careful mastication is that people gradually become accustomed to be satisfied with a comparatively small quantity of food, for as slow chewing is always more or less tedious, those who observe this rule soon cease to be great eaters, and also learn quickly to accustom themselves to another very important rule, viz., to drink moderately while eating. Two glasses of liquid will then quite suffice for a person who would drink four if he ate his viands swallowing them down without chewing.
Many obese dyspeptics when they once commence to carefully and to take liquid moderately while eating lose weight with an astonishing rapidity and become cured of the bloating of the stomach without being finally obliged to have recourse to the rigorous dry diet of Prof. Bouchard.
Wine and water, the French national drink, is an extremely frequent, and very often misunderstood, cause of dyspepsia. A good many people would enjoy excellent health if they were satisfied with pure water, that favorite drink of the aged. It is quite perplexing sometimes to see at the same table three neighbors, drinking at their dinner, the one wine, the other beer, and the third tea. How much better would it be if people, instead of choosing their habitual drink according to the place that they come from, would select it more with regard to their individual constitution! I know many who, after having, for fifty years, quietly ignored the fact, have come to the recognition that for them, wine, even if diluted with much water, is absolutely hurtful, and who, by giving it up, and by taking pure water, tea, or cider, to which Prof. C. attributes great success in his practice, instead, have got rid of their ailments almost as if by enchantment.
In conclusion, I should like to say a word with regard to salt, this panacea of arthritic persons (persons suffering from arthritis, swelling of the joints, as in gout).
For many years I have been laboring under the wrong impression, that salt is placed on the table merely for the purpose of salting boiled eggs, which the cook cannot salt in advance. Great mistake! The wisdom of nations has discovered that there are people for whom a great quantity of salt is a necessity, and that there are others who would become ill if they were to eat viands that are much salted. The salt cellar is there in order to enable every one to salt his food according to his own requirements. Many people are led by their natural instinct to salt their viands in a proportion to suit them. But there are others, among them, above all, the well bred persons previously mentioned, who treat eating with disdain and for whom the whole attraction of a repast is the charm of conversation, and to them the idea of having recourse to the salt cellar never occurs.