DYSPEPSIA AND ITS CURES

Dyspepsia is much more frequent in this country than in any other. Fully one-fourth of the adult population suffer to a greater or less extent from it. It is occasioned by improper eating in several ways. Eating too much, too fast or too often. In the digestive organs in which the processes by which the food is digested is carried on, the functions are imperfectly performed. It affects not only the stomach but various other organs, the liver, the spleen, the bowels and also the mental organism.

DYSPEPSIA AND ITS CURES. 2CT

Another cause of dyspepsia is the drinking of ice-water and iced tea. Iced tea is the cause of more diseases than one would think, gastric fever being not the least of them. Indigestion is another cause, and those who are troubled in this way should be in the sun as much as possible, and try to lie in the sun at least an hour; expose the body to sunshine, especially the back. Those who take plenty of exercise, eat good, healthy food, and live in the sunshine, will seldom have indiges- tion or dyspepsia. Tea is a most fruitful source of dyspepsia, because it is usually drank to excess.

On account of the various organs liable to be implicated, the range of symptoms is very great. Some of the most common are loss of appe- tite, nausea, acid eructations or heartburn, sense of weight and fullness in the stomach after eating, giddiness when walking, as if the pavement was rising up immediately in front of one, constipation and sallow skin ; in advanced stages cough which is often mistaken for a symptom of disease of the lungs, loss of ambition and energy, despondency, etc. These are but a few of the symptoms which present themselves.

To those unacquainted with the pathology of the disease some of the symptoms, when present, may lead them to think the cause of the trouble is different from what it really is. A very common symptom is palpitation of the heart. Those who have this almost invariably imagine that they have heart disease, and often suffer not only physi- cally from the distress caused thereby, but mentally from fear of sud- den death. The cause of a fit of the blues may be a portion of undi- gested food. The treatment of this affliction must have a two-fold object : To relieve the distress and to remove the cause. Bearing in mind the cause of the trouble, the diet should be so regulated as to give the digestive organs as little work to perform as possible. Only the most digestible food should be used, and in such quantities as not to overtax the stomach. The common symptom of acid eructations or belching of wind may be relieved by taking from one to two teaspoon- fuls of willow charcoal and two teaspoonfuls of glycerine in a little water after each meal. The prepared charcoal may be found at any druggist's.

Heartburn, so-called, indicates a too acid condition of the stomach, which should be counteracted by means pf alkalies. A half-teaspoon- ful of magnesia or bicarbonate of soda taken in a little water, will often relieve at once this disagreeable symptom.

When there is a sallow look to the skin, and a torpid condition of the bowels the liver is implicated. In such cases use pellets of podophyllin, one-fortieth of a grain. They may be obtained of any druggist, and will effectually relieve constipation and engorgement of the liver. Either kind may be used three times a day. Where there is palpitation of the heart, with some debility, the following will be of use :

268 MEDICAL.

Tincture of cinchona compound, four ounces ; citrate of iron, thirty- two-grains ; sulphate magnesia, one drachm. Take a teaspoonf ul three times a day before meals.

Sotne of its Ctires — for it can be cured by strict attention to diet, exer- cise and sleep — are here given. Oranges eaten early in the morning, one before breakfast, are very beneficial, and often entirely cure the malady,^ A few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia, drank in a small glass of water, will also often give relief. Milk and lime-water is also beneficial. To a goblet of milk add four tablespoonfuls of lime-water — this is a good proportion. Pepsin and wine — the druggist will prepare it in the right proportions — will quickly relieve heartburn, produced by dyspep- sia, or the pain that the disease produces. Or this : One ounce pulver- ized charcoal ; one ounce magnesia (calcined) ; one-half ounce ginger. Have a druggist compound it ; take a teaspoonful of the mixture and drink with half a glass of cold water after each meal.

But after all, all the remedies in the world will not cure this disease unless the manner of eating and the food is strictly attended to. The meals should be taken with regularity, and those articles of food avoided which experience proves to be unsuitable or which produce dis- comfort.