Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/534

516 become more serious. Temporary relief is easily obtained by medicine; but if the unfortunate individual continues to blame his stomach, and not the dietary he selects, the chances are that his troubles will continue, or appear in some other form. At length, if unenlightened on the subject, he becomes "a martyr to indigestion," and resigns himself to the unhappy fate, as he terms it, of "the confirmed dyspeptic."

Such a victim may perhaps be surprised to learn that nine out of ten persons so affected are probably not the subjects of any complaint whatever, and that the stomach at any rate is by no means necessarily faulty in its action—in short, that what is popularly termed "indigestion" is rarely a disease in any sense of the word, but merely the natural result of errors in diet. For most men it is the penalty of conformity to the eating habits of the majority; and a want of disposition or of enterprise to undertake a trial of simpler foods than those around them consume probably determines the continuance of their unhappy troubles. In many instances it must be confessed that the complaint, if so it must be called, results from error, not in the quality of the food taken, but in the quantity. Eating is an agreeable process for most people, and under the influence of very small temptation, or through undue variety furnishing a source of provocation to the palate, a considerable proportion of nutritious material above what is required by the system is apt to be swallowed. Then it is also to be remembered that stomachs which vary greatly in their capacity and power to digest may all nevertheless be equally healthy and competent to exercise every necessary function. In like manner we know that human brains which are equally sound and healthy often differ vastly in power and in activity. Thus a stomach, which would be slandered by a charge of incompetence to perform easily all that it is in duty bound to accomplish, may be completely incapable of digesting a small excess beyond that natural limit. Hence, with such an organ an indigestion is inevitable when this limit is only slightly exceeded. And so when temptations are considerable, and frequently complied with, the disturbance may be, as it is with some, very serious in degree. How very powerful a human stomach may sometimes be, and how large a task in the way of digestion it may sometimes perform without complaint, is known to those who have had the opportunity of observing what certain persons with exceptional power are accustomed to take as food, and do take for a long time apparently with impunity. But these are stomachs endowed with extraordinary energy, and woe be to the individual with a digestive apparatus of moderate power who attempts to emulate the performance of a neighbor at table who perchance may be furnished with such an effective digestive apparatus!

But, after all, let not the weaker man grieve overmuch at the uneven lot which the gods seem to have provided for mortals here below