Indigestion: its causes, consequences, and treatment : with copious observations on dietetics / by R.J. Culverwell.

  • Culverwell, Robert James, 1802-1852.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Indigestion: its causes, consequences, and treatment : with copious observations on dietetics / by R.J. Culverwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    assumes a severer character, and the symptom becomes ultimately aggravated by the very means employed to remove it. It requires little reflection previously to arrive at this simple fact, that where costiveness prevails, the best mode of preventing its recurrence, is to abate the cause which most produced it. The less we eat, the less costive we shall be; and if, instead of eating freely and fuUy, we were to abstain, and reduce the quantity which a depraved appetite would seduce one to take, there would necessarily be a corresponding diminution in the symptom. The first step, then, is to commence with a gradual but rapid discontinuance of the substances which have acted as the cause of dyspepsia, and secondly, the adop- tion of proper diet, to give to the stomach of the dyspeptic the greatest amount of actual nutriment at the least possible effort to the depraved powers of digestion. It would appear that food is nutritious in proportion to the quantity of farinaceous particles it contains, and that the disordered stomach is benefitted in proportion as its efforts in extracting those particles are economised. Whatever substances most contain the essential aliment in its simplest form, ought, therefore, to be employed, uncombined with the innutritions or rejectable portion, such as tapioca, meal, sago, and rice; because, as these articles contain, in the greatest degree, the elementary or farinaceous properties uncombined with inassimilable matter, the body is repaired and vitality supported at