[84] Delicate people, who are accustomed to dine at a certain hour, on certain food, &c., are generally deranged as often as they dine out, and change the hour, &c.
The Editor has a patient who never Dines out without suffering severely for several days after—not from over-eating or drinking, &c., but from the change of Diet, and the time of taking it. His habit is to make a hearty meal off one dish at Five o’clock, and drink with it some good heartening home-brewed Beer, and two or three glasses of Wine—that has not been kept till it has lost its best qualities.
[85] Dr. W. says: “When the Stomach is in a sound state, and Digestion is properly performed, the spirits are good, and the Body is light and easy; but when that organ is out of order, a languor, debility, discontent, melancholy watchfulness, or troublesome dreams, the nightmare, &c. are the consequences. I have often been seized with a slight Incubus, attended with a faintness, as if the circulation was a good deal obstructed, before I was fully asleep, which has made me get up suddenly: while I lay awake I felt nothing of these symptoms, except some degree of uneasiness about my stomach; but when I was just about to fall asleep, they began to return again.” “In this way I have gone on for two or three hours or more, in the beginning of the night. At last, I found that a dram of Brandy, after the first attack, kept me easy the whole night,” p. 312.
“When affected with uneasy sensation from wind, I have not only been sensible of a general debility and flatness of spirits, but the unexpected opening of a door, or any such trifling unforeseen accident, has instantly occasioned an odd sensation about my heart, extending itself to my head and arms, &c. At other times, when my stomach is in a firmer state, I have no such feeling: at least, in a very small degree, from causes which might be thought more apt to produce them. Fainting, Tremors, Palpitations of the Heart, convulsive motions, and all those disorders which are called nervous, &c. &c. are often owing more to the infirm state of the first passages, than to any fault either in the Brain or Heart,” p. 132, &c.
Dr. Whytt died A.D. 1766, in his 52d year.
[86] “Physicians appear to be too strict and particular in their rules of diet and regimen; too anxious attention to those rules hath often hurt those who were well, and added unnecessarily to the distresses of the sick.—Whether meat should be boiled or roasted, or dressed in any other plain way, and what sort of vegetables should be eaten with it, I never yet met with any person of common sense (except in an acute illness) whom I did not think much fitter to choose for himself, than I was to determine for him.”—Dr. Heberden on Diet.
“When the Stomach is weak, it seems particularly necessary that our food should be nutritive and easy of digestion.
“I may further observe, that its qualities should be adapted to the feelings of the stomach.
“In proof of this proposition, numerous instances might be mentioned of apparently unfit substances agreeing with the Stomach, being digested and even quieting an irritable state of the stomach, merely because they were suitable to its feelings. Instances might also be mentioned of changes in Diet producing a tranquil and healthy state of stomach in cases where medicines had been tried in vain.”—Abernethy, Surg. Obs. p. 68.
[87] “A Fool, or a Physician at Forty, is an adage containing more truth than is commonly believed.—He who has not by that time learned to observe the causes of self-disorder—shows little signs of wisdom; and He who has carefully noted the things which create disorder in himself, must by his own experience possess much knowledge, that a Physician at a pop visit ought not to pretend to.”—Domestic Management, 1813, p. xxxvi.