It must be remembered that diseases of the imagination are as actually painful to the patient as if they really were organic troubles. It is, therefore, useless to laugh at or pooh pooh the trouble, or suggest that the sufferer is only humbugging. Attention must be paid to diet, exercise, and to material, mental, and moral surroundings, so as in every way to relieve the patient from those apparent troubles that so annoy him. Great gentleness, firmness, hopefulness, and sympathy will often bring about an almost unconscious cure. If the trouble has been brought about by over-work and worry, complete rest will often be needed. If there is something in the surroundings that jars, a change may be advisable. Indigestion.--(See also Digestion; Assimilation.) This subject leads naturally to a consideration of _food_ in relation to it. The trouble usually is that food easily enough digested by others causes distress to the patient. Here we at once see that _cooking_ plays a most important part. Potatoes, for example, when steeped for half-an-hour in hot water, which is changed before they are boiled, are much more easy of digestion. The water in which they have been steeped is found _green_ with unripe sap, which is all removed. Where _unripe_ juice is present in any root, this method of cookery is a good one. Eggs placed in boiling water, and allowed to remain so till the water 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.