Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/310

 208 air they breathed while there: both, probably, co-operated to produce the result.

The following extracts from my official Reports, printed annually with the Dispensary accounts, illustrate the causes of dyspepsia:—"The most prevalent disease, by far, during this and the preceding year (1819-20) has been chronic derangement of the digestive organs, or indigestion, in its various forms and degrees. This prevails chiefly among the female patients, and is in a great measure, perhaps, attributable to their sedentary habits, and scanty and improper diet." In the Report for 1821, it is stated—"The great majority of the disorders have been of a chronic character. Of these, by far the most numerous and important are the distressing complaints which are either immediately or remotely referrible to functional derangement of the stomach and other digestive organs. In the table I have classed them chiefly under the two heads of dyspepsia and marasmus, and they will be found to constitute nearly one-fifth of the whole of the medical cases. The great majority of these occurred in the persons of women, and some in children: in the former they can, in most cases, be traced to the effect of imperfect and improper nutriment. The daily food of many of these consists, almost entirety, of imperfectly baked barley bread and warm water (misnamed tea), a sort of diet. which can hardly be expected to be long persisted in consistently with health, and which, in very many instances, I have ascertained to be directly the cause of the diseases above mentioned."

It is not difficult to account for the increased proportion of dyspeptic complaints during the years