The Opelousas courier., 1894-11-03
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.
CAUSES OF INDIGESTION.
Some Of Them Are Entirely Unknown t
n 8& 49, III Some PeoDYe.

Some of, Them Are Entirely Unknown to
49, ~ Some People.
In the Course Of a conversation, the
other day, a physician, eminent in his
profession, advanced some very sensi-
bic and practical ideas on the causes
of Indigestion.
II believe" he said, ''that a Great
many cases of indigestion are trace
able to causes to which public atten-
ton has never been called.
1T is an established fact that GER
tain articles of food composed largely
of fruit r e thought to be extremely
unwholesome. They almost always
produce indigestion, and cases of ag-
gravated fatulent dyspepsia are not
uncommon among those who habitu-
ally make use of these dishes. To prove
my theories, 1 had a psum>pndding
made, and in it were put all of the in
gradients supposed to be necessary t.
produce what an old friend of .iins
calls six months of dyspepsia to the
square inch. It had the suet, Or what
was wen richer than this, beef mar
row., in quantity.
There were ~raisins,f currants. spices
OF all sorts, and the whole was COM
pounded with butter and all of the
most approved denominations, AS a
rule l myself find it impossible to eat
of such food, as it is ordinarily pre-
pared. 1t upsets my digestion for a
week or SO, and l, long ago, made up
my mind that indulgence In such things
did not pay: but for experiments sake
! ate heartily of this pudding, which,
by the way, had been steamed for six
hours; then making up my mind to
take all the consequences in a scien-
tifc spirit, / gave abundance of time to
recover from it's effects, for I was
scarcely prepared to believe even my
own theory on this subject. The re-
suit of all of this was that IAexperi-
enced not the slightest uneasiness in
any way or form. If I had eaten the
simplest meal imaginable, / could not
have been more comfortable. Think
ing that this might be something of an
accident, l repeated the experiment
several times with uniform success. And
my theory is this: ALI sorts Of fruit is
Nh W. LII I1lS opChu 1I anu cApCSeC 10
every sort of disease germ that may be
found to float about. The fruit offers
them a frst-class propagating ground,
and they increase in numbers. When
we make such dishes as plum-pudding,
mince-pie and the like, we frequently
use these fruits with very little prepare.
ton. perhaps merely rinsing them off.
rubbing them between the hands and
the like to remove the larger particles
that may adhere to them. Then they
are cooked in a slow oven, perhaps for
a long time, but not at a very high de-
gree of heat, for it is an axiom of many
cooks that a fruit-cake should never
know a very hot oven. The re-
suit is that the fermentation germs
are not destroyed, and the moment
they come in range of the digestive
juices OF the stomach they start into.
new life, perhaps increase in vitality
by their incubation and are in a state
to go into the most active service at
once. Then fatulent DYSPEPSIA makes
the victims life wretched, and a long
train of ills almost inevitably follows.
In making u plum pudding the
fruit was put into an earthen vessel,
boiling water was poured over It, and
it was allowed to stand until the wa
ter was cool; then the fruit was care
fully sorted, every imperfect particle
removed, the raisins stoned, the cur
rants washed again and again, the
citron scraped and looked over, to
see that no bit of Objectionable ma
terial adhered to it. Then, after
the mixing, it was put into the
batter and the stearning was kept up
TO thesvery highest possible pitch until
it seemed out Of the question that
anything short Of a salamander could
survive it. And this sort Of a plum.
pudding has been part of our regular
diet and no one has experienced the
slightest annoyance from eating it.
1t would betworth while for intelligent
housekeepNs to give a little attention
to this matter and report results. Ger
tain it is that the care in preparation
and the high degree of heat have rem
dered practically harmless a dish which
aforetime was always partaken of witt
. certain amount of apprehension"
NIE |