The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-15 00:00:00

The Stomach and its Difficulties. By Sir James
Eyre, M.D. Second edition. John Churchill.
We are not by any means surprised that the
honours of a reprint have descended upon this
masterly little treatise by Sir James Eyre,
" The Stomach and its Difficulties." We areu upon
surprised, we say, at the circumstance of its repub-
lication, nay we shall not be at all amazed to ob-
serve the volume passing hereafter rapidly through
edition after edition—because we ourselves have
read it from the title-page to the last word of the
appendix, and can therefore appreciate its ability,
and can vouch for its fascination. Nevertheless,
we don't by any means repose our faith in the
existence of a panacea—be it conveyed through
the oleagenous acridity of cod's-liver- oil, or
through a saline stimulant like brandy-and-salt, or
through the pungent grit of a spoonful of mustard-
seed, or through the bean-flavoured mess of a basin
of revalenta, or through any other of those astonish-
ing and eccentric remedies which occasionally
captivate the understanding of the public like a
madness, just as we may see the enthusiasm of the
fashionable world engrossed at intervals by every
imaginable species of monstrosity, from the dancing
rags of " Jim Crow" to the abominably nonsensical
vulgarity of " Villikins and his Dinah." Candidly,
then we repeat, that we don't in any way believe in
the reality of any one of these miraculous curatives
designed not for one disease, or even for half-a-dozen,
but comprehensively for " all the ills that flesh is
heir to." Precisely as the gallows was conceived
once upon a time to be the universal medicine of your
legislating philanthropist, one to be applied with ad-
vantage to every conceivable infraction of the laws, as
the sayingruns,from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter.
We don't believe in these phantasies of the dreamers
of jurisprudence—and exactly in the same way we
altogether discredit the amiable hallucinations of
those visionaries in the science of physic, who pro-
pose with any single agent to extirpate every de-
scription of malady endured by mortals from
asphyxia to consumption, from toothache to hydro-
cephalus. In other words, returning to our original
phrase—we don't believe in a panacea. We don't
believe in it any more than we believe in the elixir
vita, or in the aurunt potabile, or in any other
beautiful but preposterous imagining of the Rosi-
crucians. We can believe in a specific, but not in
a panacea. We can perfectly well understand, of
course, the advantage of employing under different
circumstances, here a narcotic and here a soporific,
now a sudorific and now a paregoric. But an uni-
versal remedy ! We could as readily understand
the reasonableness of people being rubbed into
health by St. John Long upon the principle of
counter-irritation. And so—and so—with all de-
ference be it said, speaking, as we do, in this matter,
after the gifted pupil of the illustrious Abernethy
—we venture to commend with unstinting terms of
commendation Sir James Eyre's exceedingly clever
and really delightful treatise on " The Stomach
and its Difficulties "—although, at the same time,
we can't for the life of us conceive that the
oxide of silver [Sir J. E.'s hobby just as
the science of Vauban was the hobby of Cor-
poral Trim and my Uncle Toby] is efficacious
in the treatment of dyspepsia to such an extent as
to be not only marvellous, but really and truly
very little indeed short of being absolutely mira-
culous. As a specific, or let us say simply as a
remedy in some cases of dyspepsia, we can readily
credit the advantage of employing this wonderful
oxide of silver either in a fluid form, with a diluted
mixture of acacia, or in powder in combination with
pulv. acacia and a small quantity of pulv. glycyr-
rhizm or in pills, cum mica panis. But as an
infallible and universally applicable medicine for
the victims of dyspepsia—the luckless martyrs of
indigestion—well, we leave the ardour of our in-
credulity implied by a note of admiration ! Lite-
rally by a note of admiration, for with this reserve
in reference to any enthusiasm in regard to the oxide
of silver, we can speak of the book " as we find it,"
at once eulogistically and congeiontiougly. It is
penned from first to last in the pleasantest spirit
imaginable—in a tone of sustained vivacity and
good humour infectious, we would wager, even to
the most despondent. Knowing the author only
from the name imprinted upon the title-page, we
would, nevertheless, from the internal evidence in
his own regard conveyed, it may be, quite uncon-
sciously and unwittingly through his admirable little
treatise on the " Stomach and its Difficulties," we

would undertake to avow our belief at once without
fear of contradiction from his worst enemy, if he
have any (the possibility of which we should almost
question), that Sir James Eyre is the very reverse
of a curmudgeon. Probably enough he may have
had great personal experience in regard to the malady
of which his book treats, but when he wrote it we
are quite satisfied that he could not by possibility
have been dyspeptic—the volume contains every-
where the evidences of the melts sana iii, corpore
sano, the gay good humour of a man blessed with
a sound body, and a clear head, and a light heart,
and an unruffled temperament. Besides transcrib-
ing upon the fly-leaf of his treatise the memorable
aphorism of Hippocrates, Vita brevis, ars longa,
our author takes as the happy motto of his volume
that wise and humorous passage from Horace :
" In primis valeas bone ; nam varim res
Ut noceant homini, credas, memor illius escm,
Qum, simplex, olim tibi sederit : at simul assia
Miscueris elixa, simul conchylia turdis,
Dulcia so in bilem vertent, stoinach,oque tudnultunt
Lenta ferit pituita."
The author of this thoughtful and rational arm-
meat in reference to " The Stomach and its Diffi-
culties," might have continued to quote from that
golden leaf of the satirist—he might have asked
i with Horace—

" Vides, ut pallidus omnis
CEOlla desurgat dubia ?"
He whohas throughout his sagacious volume re-

probated the chief origin of the agonies of indi-
gestion, the source of the megrims, and the blue-
devils, and dyspepsia, might well have closed his
excerpt from the verses of the classic epicure :

" Quin corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prcegravat una,
Atque adfligit humo divinie particulam aura."
Does any one who opens the book before us as a
confirmed dyspeptic sufferer, desire by rational
means to recover that " diviner particulam, aure
from the melancholy torments of indigestion,--he
will find wise counsel enough in the anecdotal
pages dedicated by Sir James Eyre to "The
Stomach and its Difficulties." Our author is always
honestly outspoken, like that wise master of his
—John Abernethy—to whom his volume is reve-
rently and tenderly inscribed in " affectionate
remembrance." Hear, for example, how Sir James
Eyre speaks of

GLUTTONS AND GLUTTONY.

" But eating in excess is the vice of the present day,
and so well managed, that even religious persons will not
see its sinfulness—sinful, no doubt, as absorbing .and
wasting so much more food than the holy requires,
which so many absolutely need ; and unwise, the regarding
it in the lowest point of view, as lesseningthese enjoy-
enjoy-
ments of appetite by inordinate use. Thus
sen-
sualists dig their graves with their teeth, and surely
march thereto by the slow but certain steps of prema-
ture decay. But as our constitutions bear not bold and
sudden changes, the snaffle-rein must be added to the
bridle of common sense thus recommended, and so the
victory over superfluous feeding gradually obtained."
Hearken to what he says about alcoholic drinks
generally
And here let me say, in regard to port wine, that
where my patients have had the resolution to renounce
it as a habit, and drink good full-bodied claret, with
Scotch or Irish whisky and water occasionally, their old
enemy has invariably left them. Sherry agrees with
the majority of persons better than Madeira, and assi-
milates better with that seducing tempter—champagne ;
which never having been seen formerly, excepting at the
tables of the rich and the great, is now found every-
where. The dietetic physician cannot
say much in its
commendation. A single glass even would cause the
cheeks of Napoleon to become red ; but then, though a
great sufferer in other respects, his stomach was his
weakest organ, An ' outside barbarian,' a remnant of
the olden time, will be seen occasionally to venture upon
a jorum of John Barleycorn, or even a glass of port,
with his cheese, an article of diet which, being only eat-
able with the aforenamed liquids, is rapidly losing caste.
Ale and porter with the middle and higher classes are
now rarely introduced at table, their use with wine, ex•
cepting with sherry, being incompatible. Malt liqnor
is now prescribed by physicians, in certain suitable cases
only. The lower grades of society prescribe it for tb em-
selves empirically, and without consideration."
Listen, moreover, to his judicious
HINTS FOR THE SICK ROOM.
" If valetudinarians would confine themselves, while
under medical care, to one kind of meat on each .day
(ringing the changes occasionally), with wholesome staff
bread, taking brandy-and-water, or sherry-and-water, as
beverage therewith, how greatly would their cure Ana