Note 86 — PEPTIC PRECEPTS.
Reading edition
“Physicians appear to be too strict and particular in their rules of diet and regimen; too anxious attention to those rules hath often hurt those who were well, and added unnecessarily to the distresses of the sick.—Whether meat should be boiled or roasted, or dressed in any other plain way, and what sort of vegetables should be eaten with it, I never yet met with any person of common sense (except in an acute illness) whom I did not think much fitter to choose for himself, than I was to determine for him.”—Dr. Heberden on Diet.
“When the Stomach is weak, it seems particularly necessary that our food should be nutritive and easy of digestion.
“I may further observe, that its qualities should be adapted to the feelings of the stomach.
“In proof of this proposition, numerous instances might be mentioned of apparently unfit substances agreeing with the Stomach, being digested and even quieting an irritable state of the stomach, merely because they were suitable to its feelings. Instances might also be mentioned of changes in Diet producing a tranquil and healthy state of stomach in cases where medicines had been tried in vain.”—Abernethy, Surg. Obs. p. 68.