The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1903-11-26
BACHELORS ARE DYSPEPTIC.
Living and Eating Alone Productive
of IndigestiOn-COmpa
Helps Health.

The man or woman who lives alone
eats alOne-is pretty sure to be a
dyspeptic. This is not a new state
ment exactly, but it is given renewed
interest by the fact that the London
Lancet has been taking a scientific
look at the question and discussing it
learnedly. A writer in that medical
journal says:
AT a time like the present, when
the marrying age of the average man
of the middle classes is being more
and more postponed, the physical ills
of bachelordom come increasingly I'M
der the notice of the medical man. 1t
is not good for man or woman to live
alone. Indeed, it has been we'll said
that for solitude to be successful a
man must be either angel or devil.
This refers, perhaps, mainly to the
moral aspects of isolation and will
these we have now no concern. Their
are certain physical ills, however,
which are not the least among the dis
advantages of loneliness. Of these
there is many a clerk in London,
many young barrister, rising, per
haps, but not yet far enough risen;
many a business man or journalist
who will say that one of the most try
ing features of his unmarried life is to
dyspepsia is the only thing ever takes
him to his medical man.
There are some few happily dis
posed individuals who can dine alone
and not eat too fast nor too much nor
too little. With the majority it is diff
ferent. The average man puts his
novel or his newspaper before him and
thinks that he will lengthen out the
meal with due elaboration by reading
little and more between the courses.
He will just employ his mind enough
to help and too little to interfere with
digestion. In fact, he will provide that
gentle mental accompaniment which
with happier people conversation
gives to a meal
This is your solitary's excellent
idea. In reality he becomes engrossed
in what he is reading till suddenly.
finding his chop cold, he demolishes it
In few mouthfuls, or else he finds
that he is hungry, and, paying no at
tention to the book, which he filings
| aside, he rushes through his food as
fast as possible, to plunge into his
armchair and literature afterward. In
either case the lonely man must di.
| gest at a disadvantage.
For due and easy nutrition food
| should be slowly taken and the mind
should not be intensely exercised dur
ing the process. Every one knows that
violent bodily exercise is bad just
after a meal, and mental exertion
equally so. Wise people do not even
argue during or just after dinner, and
observation of after-dinner speeches
will convince anyone that most speak
ers neither endure themselves nor ex-
cite in their hearers any severe intel
| lectual effort.
In fact, the experience of count
less generations, from the red Indian
of the woods to the white-shirted diner
of modern party has perpetuated the
lesson that man should not eat alone
nor think much of his time, but should
talk or be talked to while he feeds.
Most people do not think much when
they TALK and talking is natural ac-
compartment of eating and drinking.
How does it fare with the many
solitary women of to-day? No better,
we know, than with the men, but diff
ferently. Alone, or not, man may
generally be trusted at any rate to
take food enough. eve suppose, of
course, that he can get it, With a
woman it is different. She is more
emotional, more imaginative, and less
inclined to realize the gross necessi-
ties of existence. Therefore, the WON.
an doomed to dine alone as often as
not does not dine at all She gets
dyspepsia because her digestion has
not sufficient practice; a man gets it
because his functions practice it too
often in the wrong way.
Men and women are gregarious ami
mails. Physically and Intellectually we
| improve with companionship. Certain
| ly it is not good to eat and to drink
alone. 1t is a sad fact of our big
cities that they hold hundreds of men
and women who in the day are too
busy and at night too lonely to feed
with profit. much less with any pleas
ure''