Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / By Amariah Brigham.

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / By Amariah Brigham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    89/98 (page 83)
    disorders of the digestive organs; and a difficulty in the parish, a phrase well understood in New England, often multiplies them.* Finally. If dyspepsia is a disease of the stomach, why is it not more frequently cured by attention to diet than it is ? 1 know, that by this method some are relieved, and I also know that those disposed to dyspeptic disease, will not be able to continue their severe studies, if they are not careful as respects diet. For if the vital energy is all directed to the brain, and consumed by the act of thought, the stomach Avill not be able to digest much food. If, however, they study but little, they can eat more Avith impunity. 1 have not, hoAvet'er, knoAvn this disease cured by a clninge of diet alone. I have known many students and professional gentlemen, who Avere afflicted with troublesome stomach affections for several years, during Avhich time they frequently believed they had discovered a remedy for their oauIs. Sometimes they were to be cured by eating bran bread ; at others, by weighing all the food they ate, or by liAung on rice, or porridge, or by living Avithout coffee or tea, or by some trifling change in diet, about as important as putting a few grains, more or less, of salt into an egg they eat.']' Most of the methods afford some relief for a while, and this is usually in proportion to the confidence with which they are imposed or embraced j but I do not know of one solitary cure by any of these means alone. The most instances of cure which I recollect, have been in those individuals whose minds have been permitted to rest from accustomed labours, or have been directed to new pursuits, or relieved from anxiety and care. Some have travelled far, and have recovered ; voyages have restored others. Some have become husbands, and for¬ gotten their stomach complaints; some have succeeded in business, and are well ,• some are in, or out of office, and thus their minds are freed from long-continued * The venerable Dr Perkins, of West Hartford, stated, a few weeks since, in a public discourse, that he had himself attended one hundred Ecclesiastical Councils to heal difficulties in the churches during the last sixty years. -f- “ Argan. Monsieur, coinbien est-ce qu’il faut mettre de grains de sel dans un oeuf ? “ M. Diafoirus. Six, huit, dix, par les nombres pairs, comme dans les mendicauoents par les nombres impairs.” La Malade Imayinaire.