Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/354

 346 ness, and there is more or less headache ; if vomiting occurs, and the ejecta contain bile, the sufferer in ordinary phrase is said to have had a bilious attack. The food should be taken at proper intervals, which are not always the same for all persons ; before a second meal is taken, the previous one should be completely digested, and the stomach should have a period of repose. The food ought not only to be of a character which will permit its easy digestion by the stomach and small intestines, but it should also afford a residuum bulky and stimu- lating enough to maintain a regular action of the bowels. When constipation is induced by neglect, indolent habits, or too concentrated a diet, the stomach is apt to suffer, and dyspep- tic symptoms follow. To all these causes of dyspepsia must be added the abuse of ferment- ed and distilled liquors. When dyspepsia has been induced by any one of the above mention- ed causes, its cure is to be sought in the re- moval of the cause ; but this alone will often be found tedious or inefficient. In one class of cases a certain degree of inflammation of the gastric mucous membrane seems to be produced. The presence of food excites pain, which continues so long as the food remains in the stomach ; carminatives or stimulants, so far from affording relief, aggravate the distress. In some cases the diet must be of the blandest and most unstimulating kind, and the amount of food rigidly limited. Restricting the patient to milk, diluted with an equal part of lime wa- ter, is sometimes attended by great benefit, and farinaceous articles are preferable to meat. In another and the larger class of cases, neither inflammation nor irritation is present, but the powers of the stomach seem enfeebled ; here stimulants relieve the distress, and cause at least a temporary improvement. In such cases a meat diet agrees better than an exclusively farinaceous one, and the patient is benefited by bitter tonics, as Colombo, gentian, or quassia. Certain remedies are adapted to the relief of particular symptoms ; acidity is relieved by the use of alkalies and the alkaline earths ; pain, by bismuth and hydrocyanic acid ; flatulence, by carminatives ; and constipation, when it can- not be obviated by diet and attention, may call forth the use of some of the purgative min- eral waters, or of small doses of aloes in combination with nux vomica. It is in these cases that travel, combining relaxation with mental excitement and exercise, is particularly serviceable. DZIGGETAI. See Ass. E ETHE fifth letter and second vowel of the j Latin alphabet, and of those derived from it. It is both short and long, and in the Greek alphabet has two corresponding forms, e -fyikbv (slender E), the fifth letter, and j-a (long E), the seventh letter (but counting eight if the stigma be included). The short and long O, b fitKp6v and & piya, are analogous to them. Simonides is said to have formed the H (fjra) by doubling the E (e ipi%6v), thus E3, the epsi- lon having before been both short and long. The H, however, was made by the Latins an aspirate, and was employed to represent the rough breathing, and the aspirate sound in 9, $, and X, as Homerus, Thales, Philon, Charon. The prototypes of the aspirated Greek letters in question are the Phoenician and Hebrew He and Chet. Indicating the most fleeting sound of the human voice, a mere breathing in many cases, the letter E is the basis of the vowel system and the most protean of all the vowels, as regards its shades of sound, its convertibili- ty, the modes in which it is indicated in wri- ting, and the uses that are made of it in various graphic systems. But few of its peculiarities can here be pointed out. In English it has five sounds, called long, short, open, obtuse, and obscure, respectively as in mete, met, there, her, and brier. The long English sound corre- sponds to the French and German I, while the French nasal E in em and en sounds like the English a in mart, and that in bien like the a in man ; and the sound of the French sharp E is represented in English by a, ai, ay, or ey, as in made, maid, say, and they. In Hebrew it has two sounds; the open is noted by Tzere (break), or two horizontal dots under the con- sonant ; the close by Segol (grape) or three dots, and two kinds of Sheva (emptiness), or two vertical dots, the one movable (half mute), the other quiescent (mute). The long E is writ- ten AI in Mceso-Gothic. In Greek the long and short E (e and rf) are both either open or close, but the latter is pronounced as I in Neo- Hellenic, Coptic, and Old Slavic. It is often a euphonic means for facilitating the utterance of words, as in establish, etablir, establecer, epice, espiritu, esprit, escribir, ecrire, estado, etat, estrella, etoile, Estevan, and JStienne. It is prefixed for other reasons in e/cem>?, ecqttis, and many other words. E frequently occurs in- stead of I in ancient Roman memorials, as on the columna rostrata of Duilius, on the tomb of the Scipios, and in manuscripts ; thus, sebe, quase, maeester, fuet, for sibi, quasi, magister, fuit. In the Slavic it occupies, as jest, the sixth place of the Bukvitsa as well as of the Cyrillic scheme, and has two softening forms as finals (-er, -eri) toward the close of the alphabet. Barrois asserts that E signifies one, since it is the initial of the Greek elf. As an abbreviation, E stands for Ennius, eques Romanus, egregius, emeritus, ergo, editio, east, electricity, and excellence. The letters d. e.