Lectures on dietetics and dyspepsia.

  • Roberts, William, Sir, 1830-1899.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on dietetics and dyspepsia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    contain anything like these proportions of alcohol, so that we may consider that alcohol, as used dietetically, never interferes with tryptic digestion. Nor did I find that tea or coffee, even in the propor- tion of 50 or 60 per cent, of the digesting mixture, had any effect worthy of note. A slight retardation was observed, but not the slightest sign of embarrassment. The results obtained with milk were controlled by experiments made with bread, with meat, and with fish- fibre—all of which yielded conformable results. It may therefore be concluded that with regard to pancreatic digestion the effects of food-accessories are practically nil. In no case did I find evidence of the possibility of that embarrassment and arrest which occurred in so many instances in the case of salivary and peptic digestion. On the Clinical Relations of Gastric and Intestinal Digestion.—In forming a plan of dietary for the sick, distinction must be made between gastric and intestinal digestion. In healthy persons, and invalids of the slighter sort, we must have regard mainly to gastric digestion; but in the seriously sick the stomach be- comes often inoperative, and digestion becomes almost exclusively intestinal. The sympathy of the stomach with the general condition of the system is much more active and close than that of the intestine; the former organ approximates more nearly to the animal life of the body, the latter more nearly to the vegetative life. The seriously sick, and especially the febrile sick, are often quite unable to take solid food. When the appetite and power of taking food fails, it fails first with regard to meat, which is, so to speak, the speciality of the stomach, and next in regard to bread. Patients are then reduced to the use of liquid food—milk, beaten-tip eggs, F 2