In accordance with this law of digestion, there is throughout the whole animal creation a marked aversion to activity for some time after a full meal, although man, eager in the pursuit of gain or the gratification of other passions, often sets it at defiance, and engages in bodily or mental labour both immediately before and after meals; but, in return, he receives his reward for despising the authority of Nature, in a severity of suffering from which the animals whom he treats so much better than himself are by his care entirely exempted. No where, for example, does man hurry off to business so immediately as in the United States of America, and no where does he bolt his food so much as if running a race against time. The consequence is, that no where do intemperate eating and dyspepsia prevail to the same enormous amount. Even in England, according to Dr Caldwell, the extent of transgression cannot be compared with what is witnessed among our Transatlantic brethren; and the result shews, that if we in Britain suffer from indulging our fondness for good things, the comparatively deliberate way in which we set about enjoying them serves as a partial safeguard, and exempts us from a portion of the punishment which our brethren bring down upon themselves, by the hurry with which they first devour their food and then set off to work. Rapid eating almost invariably leads to overloading the stomach; and when to this is added a total disregard of the quietude necessary for digestion, what can be expected to follow but inveterate dyspepsia? The reason why wounds, bloodletting, bathing, and other circumstances which tend to disturb the regularity of the circulation, are so hurtful after a full meal, will now be apparent. The effect of wounds and bloodletting is to give rise to an instantaneous change in the distribution of the blood, and to deprive the stomach of that which is now doubly required. Bathing, whether hot or cold, has an analogous effect; and so, indeed, have all violent and sudden bodily or mental shocks.