ely the amount of food
taken, and to regulate it easily; and it nearly always dismisses, as by
magic, all the dyspeptic conditions. If the case be an old one, I rarely
omit the milk; but, although I begin with three or four ounces every two
hours, I increase it in a few days up to two quarts, given in divided
doses every three hours. If a cup of coffee given without sugar on
awaking does not regulate the bowels, I add a small amount of watery
extract of aloes at bedtime; or if the constipation be obstinate, I give
thrice a day one-quarter of a grain of watery extract of aloes with two
grains of dried ox-gall. I find the simple milk diet a great aid
towards getting rid of chloral, bromides, and morphia, all of which I
usually am able to lay aside during the first week of treatment.[27] Nor
is it less easy with the same means to enable the patient to give up
stimulus; and I may add that in the treatment of the congested stomach
of the habitual hard drinker the milk treatment is of admirable
efficacy. As I have spoken over and over of the use of stimulus by
nervous women, I should be careful to explain that anything like great
excess on the part of women of the upper classes, in this country at
least, is, in my opinion, extremely rare, and that when I speak of the
habit of stimulation I mean only that nervous women are apt to be taught
to take wine or whiskey daily, to an extent that does not affect visibly
their appearance or demeanor.

Meanwhile, the mechanical treatment is steadily pursued, and within
four days to a week, when the stomach has become comfortable, I order
the patient to take also a light breakfast. A day or two later she is
given a mutton-chop as a mid-day dinner, and again in a day or two she
has added bread-and-butter thrice a day; within ten days I am commonly
able to allow three full meals daily, as well as three or four pints of
milk, which are given at or after meals, in place of water.

After ten days I order also two to four ounces of fluid malt extract
before each meal. The fluid malt extracts which now reach us from
Germany have become less trustworthy than they formerly were. Some of
them keep badly, and are uncertain in composition, one bottle being
good, another bad. The more constant, and at the same time most
agreeable, extracts are those now made in this country. Although their
diastasic powers are usually less than is claimed for them, and vary
greatly even in the best makes, they so far