It is especially in young children that these evils are observed. Too often the stomach of the child, semi-carnivorous, remember, by its ancestry, is literally deluged with pure starch. At the seventh or eighth month, or even earlier, for many of the patent infant foods contain it, this substance is poured into the stomach without being afforded any opportunity of undergoing salivary digestion; and for a long time after infancy large quantities are given in the liquid or pultaceous form, such as rusks soaked in milk, puddings, and mashed potatoes. This practice of deluging the digestive organs with starch, besides leading to the more immediate troubles connected with flatulent dyspepsia, gives rise to abundant formation of toxins which, by irritating the alimentary mucous membrane, set up gastro-intestinal catarrh; this, again, intensifies the dyspepsia already existing and causes a still further production of toxins, so that the motions become intensely fœtid. These poisons being absorbed into the blood the tissues become saturated with them and the nutrition of the entire organism is disturbed, the faulty metabolism manifesting itself by a diminished resistance to pathogenic agencies, by a tendency on the part of the tissues to inflame (as shown by a liability in children thus fed to bronchitis, rhinitis, naso-pharyngitis, and tonsillitis), by their proneness to tuberculosis, and finally by a disposition to rickets, which I little doubt is essentially of toxæmic origin. Besides the above-mentioned troubles an excess of starch in the stomach may set up hyperchlorhydria--_i. e._, that form of dyspepsia in which there is excessive secretion of hydrochloric acid. This affection occurs during the most vigorous years of life and is apparently due to excessive activity on the part of the gastric glands. The excess of acid does not give rise to any symptoms so long as there is any unsatisfied proteid in the stomach to unite with it, but directly all the proteid is satisfied and free acid is present in the stomach, pain, heartburn, and distention are apt to be felt; hence these symptoms are generally removed temporarily by a meal, the food ingested seizing upon the free acid, and tend to recur in the course of an hour or two. Other symptoms are mental and bodily lassitude and great mental depression, while, if the condition is long-continued, gastric catarrh and dilatation ensue. Eructation of the acrid mass, its removal with a tube, or its dilution or neutralisation by an alkali, causes relief of the symptoms. Now Dr. William Russell, who has recently studied this form of dyspepsia, has shown, and the fact is most significant from our present point of view, that in it starch is the last constituent to leave the stomach; that when this organ has so far emptied itself as to contain but one or two ounces of very acrid material the residue consists chiefly of finely divided undigested starch, which