d, in my
opinion, the principal meal should not be taken after two or three
o'clock, and there should always be a sufficient time between each
meal to enable the stomach to digest its contents. I need not remark
how very different this is from the common practice of jumbling two
or three meals together, and at a time of the day likewise when the
system is overloaded. The breakfast at sunrise, the noontide repast
and the twilight pillow, which distinguished the days of Elizabeth,
are now changed for the evening breakfast, and the midnight dinner.
The evening is by no means the proper time to take much nourishment:
for the powers of the system, and particularly of the stomach, are
then almost exhausted, and the food will be but half digested.
Besides, the addition of fresh chyle to the blood, together with the
stimulus of food acting on the stomach, always prevents sleep, or
renders it confused and disturbed, and instead of having our worn out
spirits recruited, by what is emphatically called by Shakespeare,
"the chief nourisher in life's feast," and rising in the morning
fresh and vigorous, we become heavy and stupid, and feel the whole
system relaxed.

It is by no means uncommon, for a physician to have patients, chiefly
among people of fashion and fortune, who complain of being hot and
restless all night, and having a bad taste in the mouth in the
morning. On examination, I have found that, at least in nineteen
cases out of twenty, this has arisen from their having overloaded
their stomachs, and particularly from eating hot suppers; nor do I
recollect a single instance of a complaint of this kind in any person
not in the habit of eating such suppers.

The immoderate use of spirituous and fermented liquors, is still more
destructive of the digestive powers of the stomach; but this will be
better understood, when we have examined the laws by which external
powers act upon the body. The remarks I have made could not, however,
I think, have come in better, than immediately after our examination
of the structure of the digestive organs, as the impropriety of
intemperance, with respect to food, is thus rendered more evident.

The appetite becomes deficient from want of exercise, independently
of the other causes that have been mentioned. Of all the various
modes of preserving health, and preventing diseases, there is none
more efficacious than exercise; it quickens the motion of the fluids,
strengthens the solids, causes