r is getting
cool--say _half-an-hour_--are often found to be much more easily
digested than as usually prepared. What we aim at in these
illustrations is to show that digestion depends on the _relation of the
food taken to the juices of the stomach which are to dissolve it_. It
must be brought into a digestible state if weak stomachs are to deal
with it.

Greasy, heavy dishes must always be avoided. Also unripe fruit. The
diet should be spare, as very often indigestion proceeds simply from
the stomach having had too much to do.

A very easily digested food is fine jelly of oatmeal made in the
following way:--Take a good handful of the meal and put it in a basin
with hot water, sufficient to make the mixture rather thin. Let it
steep for half-an-hour. Strain out all the rough particles, and boil
the milky substance till it is a jelly, with a very little salt. To an
exceedingly weak patient you give only a dessertspoonful, and no more
for half-an-hour. If the patient is not so weak you may give a
tablespoonful, but nothing more for half-an-hour. In that time the very
small amount of gastric juice which the stomach provides has done its
work with the very small amount of food given. Really good blood,
though only very little, has been formed. The step you have taken is a
small one, but it is real. You proceed in this way throughout the whole
day. The patient should not swallow it at once, but retain it in the
mouth for a considerable time, so that it may mix with the saliva.

By this, or by porridge made from wheaten meal, you may secure good
digestion when the gastric juice is scanty and poor; but we should not
like to be restricted to that. We want a stomach that will not fight
shy of any wholesome thing. We must treat it so that when suitable food
is offered it may be comfortably digested.

Now, there is an exceedingly simple means for putting the glands in
order when they are not so. About half-an-hour before taking any food,
take half a teacupful of water as hot as you can sip it comfortably.
This has a truly wonderful effect. Before food is taken, the mucous
membrane is pale and nearly dry, on account of the contracted state of
the arteries. In many cases the glands that secrete the gastric juice
are feeble; in others they seem cramped, and far from ready to act when
food is presented. The hot water has the same effect on them as it has
everywhere else on the body--that of stimulating the circulation and
bringin