We  should  drink  very  moderately  at  meals,  and  not  dilute  the  gastric
fluids  by  a  deluge  of  any  beverage.  It  is  perhaps  worth  notice  that
man  is  the  only  animal  who  drinks  while  eating.
As  to  the  medicinal  treatment  of  dyspepsia,  there  is  no  degree  of
certainty.  It  has  very  generally  been  assumed  that  the  most  essential
portion  of  the  malady  consists  in  a  debility  of  the  stomach,  and  that
the  remedies  most  distinctly  indicated,  therefore,  were  chiefly  to  be
found  among  the  tonics.  After  what  was  formerly  said  of  the  compli-
cated elements  which  enter  into  the  pathology  of  dyspepsia,  there  is
no  difficulty  in  accounting  for  the  ill  success,  so  much  complained  of,
of  the  choicest  and  most  powerful  tonics,  when  administered  solely  with
a  view  to  their  tonic  influence.  The  precise  modus  operandi  of  this
class  of  medicines  we  do  not  clearly  comprehend,  but  we  do  know
that  it  is  by  no  means  so  simple  an  affair  as  was  once  imagined.  The
specific  differences  which  they  exhibit  in  their  influence  on  the  body,
are  very  remarkable;  it  may  be  said  indeed  that  they  possess  no  traits
in  common.  They  cannot,  therefore,  be  used  promiscuously,  but  re-
quire to  be  carefully  adapted  to  the  particular  conditions  of  the  dys-
peptic. The  root  of  the  holly,  and  the  saracenia,  eulogized  by  Porcher,
have  been  thought  very  generally  applicable  as  tonics.
No  class  of  patients  require  so  constant  an  attention  to  their  symp-
toms, the  consequences  or  effects  of  the  morbid  condition  under  which
they  labor.     It  is  often  essential,  in  the  very  first  instance,  to  get  rid


470  DISEASES    OF    THE    DIGESTIVE    SYSTEM.
