The original / by the late Thomas Walker, edited and arranged under distinct heads; with additions by William A. Guy.

  • Thomas Walker
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The original / by the late Thomas Walker, edited and arranged under distinct heads; with additions by William A. Guy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    42/422 page 28
    BREAKFAST. IJerforrn their ablutions, and to dress completely, and to breathe for a time the freshest air they can find, either in-doors or out. I also recommend them to engage themselves in some little employment agreeable to the mind, so as not to breakfast till at least an hour and a half or two hours after rising. This enables the stomach to disburden itself and prepare for a fresh supply, and gives it a vigorous tone. 1 am aware that those who have weak digestions, either constitutionally oi from bad habits, would suffer great inconvenience from following my rules all at once. I remember the faintness and painful cravings I used to feel after rising, and like others I mistook weakness for appe- tite ; but appetite is a very different thing—a pleasurable sensation of keenness. Appetite supplied with food produces digestion—not so faintness or craving. The best means—and I always found it effectual —of removing the latter sensations, is to take a little spirit of lavender dropped upon a lump of sugar.* After that, a wholesome appetite may be waited for without inconvenience, and by degrees a healthy habit will be formed. It is to be observed, that nothing produces a faintness or craving of the stomach in the morning more surely than overloading it overnight, or any unpleasant affection of the mind, which stops digestion,—and this shows the impropriety of adding more Ibod as a palliative. With respect to the proper food for breakfast, that must depend much upon constitution and way of life, and like most other matters pertaining to health, can best be learned by dihgent observation. I think, as a general rule, abstinence from meat is advisable, reserving that species of food till the middle of the day, when the appetite of a liealthy person is the strongest. But at breakfast, as at all meals, it is expedient to select what is agreeable to the palate; being then, as always, specially careful not to let that circumstance lead to excess, even in the slightest degree, but on the contrary, to observe the often laid down rule of leaving off with an appetite. Some people swallow their food in lumps, washing it down with large and frequent gulps of liquid—an affront to the stomach, which it is sure to resent with all the evils of indigestion, as it is impossible for the gastric juice to act, especially if the body is under the influence of motion. Even the motion of the easiest carriage on the smoothest road in such case tends to produce fermentation and lever, and drinking more, the usual remedy with the ignorant, aggravates the incon- * [I have a very early recollection of ihis simple remedy. I remember, when a ohiUl, seeing Bnckiier, the then Bishop of Chichester, resorting at short intervals to his neighbour, my grandfather, for this his favourite carminative. But I suspect that the dose was, as often as not, only a specious pretext for a gossip.]
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