regular manner, they
must be weakened and irritated by draughts which do more harm than
good.

Old proverbs are often the truest, and this may be affirmed of the
adage that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Do not,
if by care you can prevent it, allow your stomach to become
disordered; but if, in spite of care, it is irritated, soothe instead
of punishing it. Manage it as you sometimes control a fretful
child,--by letting it severely alone. A few hours' fasting is an
excellent remedy, and may continue until a feeling of faintness warns
you that nature needs your assistance. Then eat _slowly_ a little
light food, such as milk-toast or very hot beef-tea. Quiet and diet
work more wonders than quarts of medicine.

If your digestive organs are susceptible to disorder, be reasonably
careful about what you eat, even though you consider yourself quite
well. What a stomach has once done in the line of misbehavior, a
stomach may do again. If a pitcher has in it a tiny flaw, it may crack
when filled with boiling liquid. If you know of some article of food
which disagrees with you, _let it alone_. If you are inclined to
dyspepsia, eschew hot breads, pastry, fried or greasy food, nuts and
many sweets. Avoid becoming dependent upon any medicine to ward off
indigestion, if by care in your diet you can accomplish the same
purpose. Many dyspeptics take an inordinate amount of bicarbonate of
soda, an excellent corrective to acidity of the stomach when partaken
of occasionally, and in small portions. In some cases, large and
frequent doses have produced a cancerous condition of the coating of
the stomach, which has resulted in death. It sounds ridiculous to
speak of dependence upon soda-mint and pepsin tablets degenerating
into an incurable habit, but there are some people to whom they are as
necessary after each meal as were snuff and quids of tobacco to the
old people seventy years ago.

Nature has provided a wonderful system of drains for carrying away the
effete matter of the body. The effect caused by the neglect of these
is akin to that produced by the choking of the waste-pipes in a house.
If they become stopped, you send in haste for a plumber, that he may
correct the trouble before it causes illness. If this state of affairs
is allowed to continue in the human body, the system takes up the
poison which slowly but surely does its work.

Next to the special organs designed for this plan of sewerage, the
skin