Lettsomian Lectures on Disorders of Digestion: Their Consequences and Treatment
Authors: T. L. Brunton
Journal: BMJ (1885)

LECTruRE III.IN my first lecture, I mentioned that the functioi of digestion, like health generally, may be strong or weak.A.strong digestion is capable of withstanding all sorts of adverse influences, while a w-eak digestion can remuin undisturbed only under the 'mst favourable-cir- cumstances.When any diturbances have occurred' in the digestive function, no matter whetherit were strong or weak origina!lly, the first step towards restoring it to health is remove, if possible, ;any disturbing causes which may still -be acting upon it.One of the commonest of these is imperfect mastication.As I have 'said' several times already-but the importance of the subject will eexcuse the re- teration-tlhe first stpp in the process of solution: is mechanical disin!- tegration.Children are not long in learning this truth, for tlhey soon find out that they get fuller flavour from a hard sweettneat if they break it with their teeth, than if they simply suck it.Thea child thus gets the sweetmeat quickly dissQlved, and its sense of taste is, m'ore thoroughly gratified, but the sweetmeat does not, remAain.so long in the mouth.If children of an older growth would remember this early experience, anu apply it to their food generally, there, WQuld be less in, digestion.Man is a lowpressure engine, and wprk § almostall his organs considerably under their full power.All around us in,, town or city we see men who, in a walking tour, could do, twenty, thirty, 9r1forty miles without the least inconvenience, ud yet -in their Qrdinary avo- cations they probably do not w,alk two.In the county, on-the other hand, we find men of good brains, who have perhaps distinguished themselves at college by thejr mental powers,; by their close applica, tion, and by the long hours during whiph they cqul4 .work,and who yet, in their daily life, rarely set themselves a harder nenital task than to understand the leading article of a 4aily.pape.JIt is the same thing with the qther organs of the body: A.),ealthyy sptomaah.canusually digest a good aeal more than,it is calle4lFspan daily to do.'A healthy kidney can excrete twice or thrice as-much as it ordinarily does; an'd thus, in fact, we see-that, wlen one kidnaey'is removed the organism frequently seems h,ardly to' feel the loss, all the waFteproducts being excreted as usual.Jut tlire is a limit to a1l things, and that limit is more easily reached in some camos than in others.As some one has shrewvdly remarked, we have tyo kidneys and two lungs, but we have only one stomach,-and thprofore there is the greater reason why we should nqt Verbnrden, it.,When a ;young man is oalled upon for extra exertion, either bodily o,r a t4,, he is able to meet the demand by making a spurt ;; bu-t a. he,grows older, this power gradually lessens.The same is the case with-the, tomach.Boys' .stomachscan digest almost anythingj ,aoughhalfrohewed green apples .maysometimes prove too much even for,them.In a youth, the stomach, will digest the food eve when bolted 'half chewed but, as' the man approaches middle age;, it resents this treatment; it -will no,longer make a spurt.todo the work-of the jawsas -well as-its ownsand,indigestion is the conseq4pnue.Imperfect mastication frequently arises from too short a time being allotted for a meal, or from the-mind being occupied d-ring the meal with the idea of something to be done afterwards.It is curious sometimes to watch the phases of mastication varying i4n the qame perqon during a single meal, according to the ideas which cross the mi4d.In-some