A treatise on diet : with a view to establish, on practical grounds, a system of rules, for the prevention and cure of the diseases incident to a disordered state of the digestive functions / by J.A. Paris.

  • Paris, John Ayrton, 1785-1856.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on diet : with a view to establish, on practical grounds, a system of rules, for the prevention and cure of the diseases incident to a disordered state of the digestive functions / by J.A. Paris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    176/430 (page 156)
    THE DIFFERENT ALIMENTS REQUIRE tion will be impeded. It therefore follows, that different aliments will require different quantities of liquid to assist their chymification. Animal food demands, of course, a greater quantity of drink than vegetable food; roasted than boiled meat; and baked still more than roasted. The next question to be considered is, as to the most suitable period for taking liquids; and this is, in some measure, ^answered by the preceding observations. By drink- ing before a meal, we place the stomach in a very unfit condition for the duties it has to perform. By drinking during a meal, we shall assist digestion, if the solid matter be of a nature to require it; and impede it, if the quantity taken renders the mass too liquid. Those physicians, therefore, who have insisted upon the necessity of a total abstinence of liquid daring a meal, appear to have forgotten that every general rule must be regulated by circum- stances. The best test of its necessity is afforded by the sensations of the individual, which ought not to be disregarded, merely because they appear in opposition to some preconceived theory. The valetudinarian who, without the feeling of thirst, drinks during a meal because he has heard that it assists digestion; and he who abstains from liquid, in opposition to this feeling, in consequence of the clamour which the partisans of a popular lecturer have raised against the custom, will equally err, and contribute to the increase of the evil they so anxiously seek to obviate. Dr. W. Philip has stated