The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-25

New York Ledger.
1t used to be the custom in our house to
talk over during meal time whatever dis
agreeable things had occurred at any time
preceding. L don't know just how it came
about, but we fell into the habit and kept
it up, as a great many people do such
things, probably because it had never en-
tered our minds that we were doing a very
foolish thing. One summer we had as a
guest an old doctor of whom we were very
fond He was so entirely one of US that we
never thought of changing our manners
and methods, and SO the usual discussion
went on.
One morning something specially irritat-
ing had happened, and the whole family
was in a state of ferment. The breakfast
had been a very uncomfortable meal, and
one or two members of the household had
left the table with scarcely a mouthful of
food. An hour or so afterward the doctor
took occasion to give me a bit of lecture.
He explained in the simplest possible fash
ion the effect of agitation on the digestion
and questioned the wisdom of ever permit
ting unpleasant topics to be discussed at
meals. He told me to observe particularly
what my own sensations were II anything
startling occurred just after / had taken
food. We had been a family of dyspeptics-
nothing serious, but always with what we
called weak stomachs. our meals didn t
set WELL as We expressed It, and almost
everything seemed TO upset us.
On the doctors advice We made hard
and fast rule that under no circumstances
should anything unpleasant be brought up
at table. Nothing shcrt of cyclone or a
fatal accident to man or beast was Suth-
cient excuse for breaking this rule. In place
of unpleasant topics we all, by sort OF
private understanding, tried to have some
thing funny or interesting TO say when we
came to the table. If we failed to Ind
anything worthy of comment, which oc-
Cured on several occasions, the lud1crous-
ness of the situation struck us so forclbly
that we gave way to outbursts OF mlrth,
and a number of times we found ourselves
giggling in what would have seemed to an
outsider extremely silly things. Sometimes
We laughed simply because there was moth
ing to say, and the effort to think of some
thing increased our merrlment.
Within a few weeks there was notable
improvement in the health OF the family;
This was particularly observable in one OF
the children, an exceedingly nervous, SEN
SitiVe and timid yOungSter, VINO was pale,
thin and irritable. and had gwen the family
no end of uneasiness lest she were gong
into a decline. She ate literally nothing at
table, but seemed possessed OF mania TO
fly into the kitchen and pick up whatever
she could find there.
The doctors talks set me to thinking and
without exciting her suspicious l got her
To sneak of her appetite and why she liked
things better when she picked them up be-
tween meals. She said they didn't taste
good at the table; that they made lump
in her throat every time she tried 10 eat
hut that when she took them in her hands
and ran out of doors to eat them she felt
better, for she was hungry almost all the
time.
This was a text for a most valuable les
son and is one that every parent and nurse
or care-taker of children ought 70 under
stand. I have asked a number of little ones
Since that time why they enjoyed eating
between meals, and if L could get at the
truth it was that they were so continually
reproyed at the table: that their pleasure in
eating was spoiled, or that everybody was
so cross that they really couldn't eat with
any comfort, and almost without exception
they spoke of their food choking them
Without knowing the reason why, theil
nerves were so upset that they had the
lump in their threats, a condition which
makes eating almost impossible. The bes1
medicine in the world for that lump is 9
good hearty laugh; and high spirits anC
| plenty of fun at table are better dyspepsia
cures than all the doctors stuff in creation
n.