Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 134, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1910 — THE FAMILY DOCTOR [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE FAMILY DOCTOR

Stomach mud Nerves. There is no one living who has not been compelled with more or less frequency to learn by actual experience what Is meant by indigestion, the lessons varying from the occasional acute attack, traceable to some unmistakable indiscretion, to the condition of semiinvalidism in which many persons languish, solely by reason of the uncertain action of tlie digestive processes. In most cases of indigestion, or dyspepsia, the stomach or the intestines are at fault; but this is by no means always so, and great injustice is done by a failure to recognize that the stomach is-liot the real culprit, but is only put forward by the rest of the system, as it were, as a spokesman. It faithfully performs its office of lodging a complaint for the general economy, and it Is then immediately dosed and redosed, with disappointing results, because the real trouble has not been reoognized or attacked. Everyone has heard that it Is best not to eat when extremely fatigued, but this is not because the stomach itself is tired, but because the entire system Is temporarily too enfeebled to send out sufficient blood suppljr to cope with t|>e Increased work that digestion entails. The stomach, in order to do its work properly, must be fed with the nervous force that comes from good circulation, and this is impossible if the brain Is calling for more than its share. This, again, is the reason why brain workers should not go straight from their work to a heavy meal, but should take -a walk or some simple gymnastic exercises first, in order to draw the blood from the oversupplied braiu down to the stomach, the turn or which to work has come. The same reason should forbid immediate hard Work of any kind after a meal. Let the stomach have its fair turn. Much indigestion may be classed as purely nervous in its origin. If the whole nervous system is out of order and on strike, it would be strange if the nerves of the stomach should escape the general calamity. In this type, constant doses of medicine for "stomach trouble” will do little good, but judicious rest and general toning up of the whole nervous system may work a miracle. That most wretched of all the briefer illnesses known as a "sick headache,” in which, as the name implies, the stomach is a co-sufferer with the head, is much more apt to he caused by irritated brain centers than by abuse of the digestive organs, as is proved by the frequency with which an attack is brought on by overuse of the eyes, or any continued strain or excitement.—Youth’s Companion.