An essay on indigestion; or morbid sensibility of the stomach and bowels, as the proximate cause or characteristic condition of dyspepsy, nervous irritibility, mental despondency, hypochondriasis, and many other ailments of body and mind. To which are added, observations on the diseases and regimen of invalids, on their return from hot and unhealthy climates / [James Johnson].
- James Johnson
- Date:
- 1829
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay on indigestion; or morbid sensibility of the stomach and bowels, as the proximate cause or characteristic condition of dyspepsy, nervous irritibility, mental despondency, hypochondriasis, and many other ailments of body and mind. To which are added, observations on the diseases and regimen of invalids, on their return from hot and unhealthy climates / [James Johnson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![in my own person, that this /a¢ter class of human afilictions is infinitely more prevalent, more distressing, and more obstinate, than the former. It isa class of disorders, the source, seat, and nature of which are, in nine cases out of ten, overlooked— and for very obvious reasons,—because the morbid phenomena present themselves any where and every where, except in the spot where they have their origin. But it may be asked, what are the proofs that various disorders, mental and corporeal, have their origin in gastric or intestinal irritation, that irritation not being sensible to the individual? J answer, that the proofs will be found in the observation of cases every hour presenting themselves in practice. I ask for no assent to propositions or assertions, unless they ac- cord with the experience of the practitioner himself. ‘There are great numbers of dyspeptics in the profession as well as out of it. Let these observe, in their own persons, the phenomena which I] shall point out as proofs of the positions I have laid down, and decide according to the evidence of their own senses. I have already shewn, in the examples of antimony and digi- talis, (and the list might be increased ad infinitum) that the remotest parts of the system may be thus disordered through the medium of the stomach, before any sensible effect is produced on the stomach itself. This, however, is in a state of health. But let the nerves of the stomach and bowels acquire a morbid sensibility or irritability from any of the various causes which I shall hereafter detail, and then it will require no such application as that of antimony or digitalis to induce a host of affections in remote parts of the body. Such food and drink as, in health, would only nourish or agreeably stimulate, will then act like a poison on the system, deranging the mental, and disordering the corporeal functions, often without the slightest sensible incon- venience in the stomach and bowels themselves.* How is this ascertained? By simple observation. Let a person, labouring * I may quote the authority of Whytt for this observation. ‘* When the feeling of the nerves,”’ says he, “‘ in any of the organs of the body becomes unnatural or depraved, the most disagreeable sensations and alarming symp-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33488915_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
