The physiology of digestion, considered with relation to the principles of dietetics / By Andrew Combe.

  • Combe, Andrew, 1797-1847.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiology of digestion, considered with relation to the principles of dietetics / By Andrew Combe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    175/188 (page 153)
    ago by Mr Parker of Birmingham, “On the Stomach and its Morbid States.” After describing the mode in which repeated attacks of gastric irritation ultimately induce disorgan- ization of the stomach, Mr Parker says, ‘I have had the charge of seve- ral patients in the later stages of gas- tric diseases, who have been able dis- their complaints. These have seldom commenced béfore the age of twenty-five, at the periods when they had began the habitual use of a fuller and more stimulating diet than that of the ear- lier periods of life. The symptoms with which they were first affected were those of simple indigestion in its various forms of pain or distention after food, nausea, or vomiting. These have ceased at intervals, have been re- lieved by various plans of treatment, but have shewn a disposition to recur at longer or shorter intervals from dietetic errors or excesses, or from other causes, in more aggravated and obstinate forms than those in which they first made their appearance, and accompanied by sympathetic irrita- tions in the head, heart, liver, or lungs, exhibited in the forms of giddiness, palpitations, jaundice, or cough.” “Many of the patients in whom dys- peptic symptoms have commenced about the ages of twenty or thirty, have fallen victims to gastric diseases and their complications at the ages of from forty-five to fifty-five.’—P. 47. Mr Parker supports his position by nume- rous cases, the histories of which are de- tailed by the patients themselves ; and, with the slight difference that he speaks of the patients beginning the use of the full and stimulating diet at twenty-five, when, according to my ob- servation, their error consisted rather in continuing the full diet of earlier life, we entirely agree in opinion. The effect is, however, much aggravated when, to mere excess in quantity, a stimulating quality is added, such as arises from the indulgence in wine or ardent spirits, common enough in young men at the age to which Mr Parker refers. In such circumstances, it is not the stomach alone which guf- 153 fers ; the bowels also become seriously disordered, lose their natural tone. and thus seem to demand the constant aid of medicine. In one case, arising from pure excess of eating after growth had finished, four years of continued bad health in an otherwise sound con- stitution were the penalty inflicted before the real cause was accidentally discovered. During all that time, too, temporary relief invariably followed the use of purgatives, and seemed in some measure to point to the truth; but from the mind never having been directed to the principles, its practica™ bearing was overlooked, and now the individual wonders that the cause did not, even at first sight, arrest the at- tention of his medical advisers. In cases of this description, how- ever, it ought to be observed that it is not the mere constipation which in- jures the health and requires to be re- moved. It is in reality to the mode of life which induces the constipation that we ought to direct our attention; for, unless that be amended, all our efforts to preserve the health by merely re- moving the effect will prove insuffi- cient. Medical men ought to point out this fact: to their patients. In the natural and healthy state, under a proper system of diet, and with sufficient exercise, the bowels are relieved regularly once every day. In some constitutions, however, the ordi- nary period is shorter or longer than than this—twice a-day, or only once in two days; but such differences are unimportant when they do not proceed from morbid causes or in any way dis- turb the health. Habit, in this as in other operations under the influence of the nervous system, is powerful in modifying the result, and in sustain- ing healthy action when once fairly established. Hence the advantage of observing. as much regularity here as in taking our meals, and the im- propriety of breaking through the habit when once formed. Sleep seems to be favourable to the progress of nu- trition, and it is apparently during the night that the assimilation of the daily food is completed and its residue prepared for being expelled. Hence