ard against and prevent: and which surely will be
guarded against, when their causes are known, and consequences
understood.

Among the diseases arising from a disordered state of the stomach and
indigestion, may be enumerated the following: great oppression and
anxiety, pain in the region of the stomach, with acid eructations,
nausea, vomiting, the bowels sometimes costive, sometimes too loose,
but seldom regular, depression of spirits, and all the long list,
commonly, but very improperly, termed nervous complaints, deficient
nutrition, and consequently general weakness, a relaxed state of the
solids, too great a tenuity of the fluids, headach, vertigo, and
many other complaints, too numerous to mention here.

The greatest misfortune, and which indeed arises from a want of
physiological knowledge, is, that people labouring under these
disorders, imagine they may be cured by the reception of drugs into
the stomach, and thus they are induced to receive into that organ,
half the contents of an apothecary's shop. There is no doubt that
these complaints may oftentimes be alleviated, and the cure assisted,
by medicines: thus, when the stomach is overloaded, this may be
removed by an emetic; the same complaint of the bowels may be removed
by a cathartic; and when the stomach is debilitated, we are
acquainted with some substances which will give it vigour, such as
iron, the Peruvian bark, and several kinds of bitters. These however,
when used alone, afford but temporary relief; and unless the cause
which induced the disease be removed, it will afterwards return with
redoubled violence. When the stomach, for instance, is debilitated by
want of exercise, I would ask, is there an article in the whole
materia medica, that can cure the complaints of sedentary people,
unless proper exercise at the same time be taken? With exercise tonic
remedies will undoubtedly accelerate the cure, but without it, they
will only make bad worse.

Again, when the stomach is debilitated by the use of improper food,
or the abuse of fermented or spirituous liquors, I would say to any
one who pretended to cure me of these complaints, without my making a
total change in the manner of living, that he either was ignorant of
the matter, or intended to deceive me.

In many cases the change of food must be strictly observed and
persevered in for a long time before a cure can be effected. In some
instances where the powers of the stomach were too weak to p