The time for meals should be when we are hungry, as we should never eat at other times for fear of not being able to digest well, owing to the absence of stomach juice. It is essential to take our meals every day at the same time; our stomach is of such a clock-like mechanism that it best indicates the hour for meals. If well disciplined it will secrete its gastric juice every day at the same hour. If possible we should always eat in company, for then we will eat slower, masticate better, and, if the company is jovial, probably secrete more gastric juice. Just as after meals, so also before them, any strenuous exercise should be forbidden. A little exercise may promote the gastric digestive secretions; but if we become tired from much exercise, then certainly not much and sometimes no gastric juice will be secreted; then meat extracts, bouillon, or soup will be necessary for obtaining an appetite. Some people eat too much bread, which may cause overwork for the stomach, as to digest bread gives it more work than does other food. It has been found that the albuminous parts of bread require five times more ferments and pepsin of the stomach than does meat; besides which, as we have found in many of our patients, there is nothing that causes an acid stomach so often as does too much bread, especially in nervous people. The most digestible food for most stomachs is meat, if it does not contain much connective tissue. Meat sauces and bouillon are excellent appetizers. However, such nourishment at every meal has its inconveniences, on which we will enlarge in another chapter. It is most desirable only to take meat once a day—at dinner. The albumin in meat is much easier to digest than that in vegetables; to digest the latter, particularly potatoes, cabbage, etc., we need to have a thoroughly good stomach. Fat dishes are able to diminish the quantity of stomach juice, and fatty potatoes or other vegetables with much fat, demand sound stomachs, in the same way as does rich pastry. Butter is an easily digested fat if it is fresh, but certainly not when it contains free fatty acids. Besides meat, cereals, such as are taken in America at breakfast, especially when finely ground and taken in the form of flour, are most easily digested. It is an excellent American custom to commence breakfast with grape-fruit, which is somewhat astringent and very refreshing; but to begin breakfast with an apple or a pear is the greatest possible offense to a normal stomach, and occurs only because of the lack of a thorough knowledge of the physiology of the stomach. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XLII. ON THE USES OF SMALL DOSES, AND THE DELETERIOUS ACTION OF LARGE QUANTITIES OF ALCOHOL.