rer to seek medical aid for disease of the stomach, bowels, liver,
kidneys, lungs, etc.

_Slow digestion_ is perhaps the most common form of functional
disturbance of the stomach, due to an insidious auto-infection for
years. The eyes and the skin begin to show the effect of the poisonous
infection. The skin becomes dry, pale and muddy in color; has more or
less annoying eruptions, and exhibits a jaundiced appearance. The body
is ill nourished, the nervous system depressed, the blood impoverished,
the memory failing, the general appearance languid, irritable, anxious.
What a household picture this is to every one of the human family! But
let us fill it out somewhat more fully. Note how the undue delay of
food in the stomach occasions a sense of weight and oppression, the
feeling beginning about an hour after a meal and continuing for hours,
sometimes attended with fermentation and sometimes without it. At times
there is a feeling of drowsiness due to the absorption of an excessive
amount of the gases which distend the stomach and bowels, and this
absorption is accompanied by pains in the stomach, head, between the
shoulders and in the region of the heart. Sleep is disturbed by dreams,
or one is awakened with a feeling of numbness and palpitation of the
heart. At times the urine is scanty, strongly acid or high-colored. The
tongue is more or less foul, with white or creamy coating. Now and then
tasteless or saltish eructations occur. The appetite may be too good,
or there is no appetite at all. Note the careworn expression, the
wondering what to eat, what to drink or what remedy to take. So between
much worse and some better, the trouble continues--both of body and
mind.

_Indigestion_, however, with undue formation of acids proper, or acids
unnatural, to the stomach, is a much more annoying affliction than slow
digestion. The sufferer from indigestion may be debilitated, anemic,
may have a general want of tone; or he may be a more or less vigorous
and plethoric person. In some cases flatulence is very troublesome. But
the most usual symptoms are heartburn, acid eructations that produce
burning sensations, sour taste at intervals or constantly in the mouth,
setting the teeth on edge. In the more vigorous or plethoric sufferers
a gouty diathesis may exist, which may result in a tendency to
inflammation, bringing on neuralgia, rheumatism, gout, etc. Tongue more
or less foul; uric acid in the system; confusion in the mind;