This is a strongly drawn picture, but, with a modification in degree, it is perhaps not less applicable to our own and other European countries than to the United States. The “Old Man’s” description of German feeding is in its main features essentially the same; and, so far as my observation and experience go, it is only in a less degree that we fall short of our brethren in America. As a general rule, we also exceed, though not to the same extent. This is owing partly to our more advanced civilization, and partly to the greater difficulty of procuring the means of excess; and if I have resorted to Germany and the United States for the most striking illustrations of the principle, it is not from want of examples at home, but because we are so much more alive to the errors of our neighbours than to our own, that the principle involved in their commission will be more readily recognised when pointed out in them, than when its perception is made to imply condemnation of ourselves. It is a trite observation, that medical men are constantly exclaiming against the eating propensities of their patients, and inculcating the practice of temperance. One of the most eminent physicians of the present day says, “I believe that every stomach, not actually impaired by organic disease, will perform its functions if it receive reasonable attention; and when we consider the manner in which diet is generally conducted, both in regard to quantity and to the variety of articles of food and drink which are mixed up into one heterogeneous mass, instead of being astonished at the prevalence of indigestion, our wonder must rather be, that, in such circumstances, any stomach is capable of digesting at all. In the regulation of diet, much certainly is to be done in dyspeptic cases, by attention to the quality of the articles that are taken; but I am satisfied that _much more depends upon the quantity_; and I am even disposed to say, that the dyspeptic might be almost independent of any attention to the quality of his diet, if he rigidly observed the necessary restrictions in regard to quantity.”[41] The latter opinion, which is in perfect harmony with Dr Beaumont’s observation of the power of digestion being limited by the amount of gastric juice which the stomach is capable of providing--an amount varying with the wants of the system, and consequently with the mode of life--is also forcibly though quaintly supported by a late popular writer, who affirms that “it is your superfluous SECOND COURSES”--“(which are served up more to gratify the pride of the host than the appetite of the guests) that _overcome the stomach_ and _paralyze_ digestion, and seduce children of larger growth to sacrifice the health and comfort of several days--for the baby-pleasure of tickling their tongues for a few minutes with trifles and custards.”[42]