reat care._ The food should be simple,
nutritious, moderate in quantity, and taken at regular periods. Large
quantities of stimulating food, frequently taken, serve to increase
the nervous prostration. Those afflicted should exercise in the open
air, and engage in social conversation, that the brain may be excited
to a natural or healthy action, in order that it may impart to the
digestive organs the necessary stimulation.

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Of the Anglo-Saxon race? 318. How can the Spanish custom be improved?
319. How is the influence of the mind on the digestive process
exhibited? What does it show the necessity of avoiding? 320. How
should indigestion arising from nervous prostration be treated?

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321. _Persons should abstain from eating, at least three hours before
retiring for sleep._ It is no unusual occurrence, for those persons
who have eaten heartily immediately before retiring to sleep, to have
unpleasant dreams, or to be aroused from their unquiet slumber by
colic pains. In such instances, the brain becomes partially dormant,
and does not impart to the digestive organs the requisite amount of
nervous influence. The nervous stimulus being deficient, the unchanged
food remains in the stomach, causing irritation of this organ.

_Illustration._ A healthy farmer, who was in the habit of eating one
fourth of a mince pie immediately before going to bed, became annoyed
with unpleasant dreams, and, among the varied images of his fancy, he
saw that of his deceased father. Becoming alarmed, he consulted a
physician, who, after a patient hearing of the case, gravely advised
him to eat _half_ of a mince pie, assuring him that he would then see
his grandfather.

322. _When the general system and digestive organs are enfeebled,
mild, unstimulating food, in small quantities, should be given._ In
the instance of a shipwrecked and famished mariner, or a patient
recovering from disease, but a small quantity of nourishment should be
given at a time. The reason for this, is, that when the stomach is
weakened from want of nourishment, it is as unfitted for a long period
of action in digesting food, as the muscles are, under like
circumstances, for walking. Consequently, knowledge and prudence
should direct the administration of food under these circumstances.
The popular adage, that "food never does harm when there is a desire
for it," is untrue, and, if practically adopted, may be injur