The diet of a sick person ought never to _combine too much nutriment in too small a space_;[258] when so given it will even in health be followed by _fermentation_ instead of _digestion_; and although we may admit the expediency of that domestic maxim, “_a little and often_,” yet this is to be received with limitation; no one, for instance, who possesses any philosophical knowledge, will adapt his practice to the notions of Sir William Temple, who asserted that “the stomach of a valetudinarian was like a school-boy, always doing mischief when unemployed,” and that we should therefore not allow it any interval of repose: to this I answer, that the conversion of aliment into blood is effected by a series of elaborate processes, several of which are only perfectly performed during the quiescence of the rest: it would seem, for instance, that the process of _chylification_ is incompatible with that by which the first changes are produced in the stomach; this is evident from the well-known fact, that our appetite for food ceases when the former process commences, although the repast should, at the time, have been insufficient to satisfy the craving of nature; whereas, in diseases of imperfect, or depraved digestion, as in _Diabetes_, _Tabes Mesenterica_, &c. we find that the appetite for food is never satisfied by the most nutritive meals. It merits notice also, that whenever the stomach be called into action during the assimilating stages of digestion, the process will, in weak persons, be much disturbed, if not entirely suspended. These views have long since confirmed me in the propriety of treating mesenteric affections in a manner very different from that which is generally pursued; and I may add that the result has been very satisfactory. The plan to which I allude, consists in enforcing longer intervals between each meal, which should be scanty, and in quantity short of what the appetite may require; in this way are the unwilling absorbents induced to perform their duties with greater promptitude and activity; but it is a practice which, from the extreme anxiety of friends and relatives, the feelings of craving and hunger expressed by the patient, and the mistaken but universal prejudice respecting diet, it is always painful to propose, and generally impossible to enforce; where, however, circumstances have given a full and unreserved controul, the advantage of the plan has been most decisive.