DYSPEPSIA

(Gr. dvs, ant, ncirro), J digest or concoct.) Indigestion. This is a complaint from which few entirely escape, which a umes an infinite variety of shapes and symptoms, and which arises from many causes. In the higher ranks of society, and amongst the luxurious and opulent, it is a common consequence of over eating, or of indulgence in difficultly digestible or over-stimulaling food, or of want of due exercise and general bodily and mental exertion. In others it results from mental anxiety and lanour a ociated with a sedentary life; from the fatigues of busine or the influence of debilitating pa ions. In the lower orders it is the constant result of indulgence in spirituous liquors, combined in many instances with want of proper food, the means which ought to be applied to procuring it being disposed of in the gin shop. The symptoms of dyspepsia vary, therefore, in the different grades of life. The epicure loses his relish for the Most refined dishes, becomes bloated, plethoric, heavy, and perhaps apoplectic; the lady of fashion suffers from headaches, flatulence, occasional giddine , and dimne of sight; she becomes indolent, capricious, and full of fancies,or,as the old physicians used to say, she has the vapours;the studious man feels the intensity of his mind blunted, loses his appetite, or at least all enjoyment of meals, sleeps ill, and dreams much, gets whimsical and discontented with himself and his friends, and becomes a hypochondriac; the lower cla es at first take their gla of i of rum because they find it a cheap stimulant, little thinking of the misery they are laying up for future years; this stimulant soon becomes habitual, and they not only feel miserable and heartbroke,n without it, but the single gla soon loses its efficacy, and the dose must be gradually increased till374they degenerate into regular tipplers, the as- [s. 388]