After the full exposition of the laws of digestion given in the first part of this work, I need hardly add, that although there are very few articles of diet which a person in health, and leading a sufficiently active life, may not eat with impunity, there are, nevertheless, some which ought to be preferred, and others which ought to be avoided, by those _whose digestion is impaired_. Thus, vegetables are, generally speaking, slower of digestion than animal and farinaceous aliments, and consequently, when digestion is feeble, are liable to remain in the bowels till acetous fermentation takes place, and gives rise to acidity and flatulence. Fat and oily meats are nearly in the same predicament, and hence both form unsuitable articles of diet for dyspeptics. Soups and liquid food are also objectionable, both because they are ill adapted for being properly acted upon by the gastric juice and by the muscular fibres of the stomach, and because they afford insufficient nourishment. From the former cause they frequently impair the digestive functions; and from the latter, they induce diseases of debility which it is difficult to subdue. Daily experience furnishes examples of stomachic disorder from eating soups, especially as preliminary to an otherwise substantial dinner; and the fatal epidemic which prevailed a few years ago in the Milbank Penitentiary, was distinctly ascertained to have been partly caused by an insufficient and too liquid diet. It is common, indeed, to see heartburn and indigestion of recent origin cured simply by giving up soups and vegetables, and diminishing the quantity of liquid taken at breakfast and tea.