CHAPTER X.

WHEN TO TAKE FOOD.

[Sidenote: Punctuality.]

Punctuality at meals is absolutely essential for the maintenance of good health. The stomach gets into the habit of secreting its digestive juices at certain times, as meals fall due. If it does not meet with the food it has come to act upon, it will seize upon the stomach wall and cause pain and a nauseous sense of sinking. And these sensations will probably be followed by a headache, for the gastric juice, which is one of our vital agents, is nothing less than an irritant poison if it has no work to do. It is like a man loitering about an office or workshop when trade is slack. He has gone there to work, and when he finds nothing to do except to hang around and put in time as best he can, he becomes dissatisfied.

More than that, it is only too likely that if this goes on for several days the man will fail to turn up one morning. As there is nothing for him to occupy his time with, he thinks he might as well stay away. And that is exactly what the gastric juice does under similar circumstances. If people have been accustomed to take dinner at one o’clock each day, and for several days in succession turn up an hour late, they will find that they begin to suffer from indigestion. The gastric juice has got tired of making its appearance at the proper time; as it has been treated with contempt, it takes its revenge by staying away. There is a form of gastric derangement known as Commercial Traveller’s Dyspepsia, which is due solely to the fact that with these members of the community meal-times must be constantly varied, owing to the exigencies of their work, and the vagaries of railway trains.

Of course, it may be necessary at times to make an alteration in a meal hour. When the light summer evenings come, many people prefer to change the hour of the evening meal, in order to enjoy walks or outdoor games. If, however, the new hour is adhered to, the stomach soon learns to adapt itself to the change. It is the constant chopping and changing about from day to day that has such a pernicious effect on the system.

There is another member of the community who is liable to suffer from the consequences of irregularity in regard to the midday meal. It is the woman whose husband cannot get home to lunch, so that she is left to take it alone, unless she has children to cater for. We confess to having less sympathy for her than for the aforesaid commercial traveller, for it is not the fault of the latter that he does not get his meal regularly at its proper time, while in the case of the woman the blame lies entirely with herself. She takes that deadly “something on a tray,” and takes it at any time that suits her convenience. Probably she has had a breakfast of tea and bread and butter. Too often the same fare appears for her lunch. There is little wonder that often she is a martyr to dyspepsia and headache.

[Sidenote: Interval between meals.]

The question as to the length of the interval between meals is an important one. And here, in particular, individual requirements enter largely. Some people can go for a considerable time without food and feel better for so doing. Others feel sick and unduly tired if they fast too long. It rests with each one to find out what suits them best.

On general principles, however, if an interval is too short there is a likelihood of a certain amount of food being left over still undigested from the last meal. And this interferes with the work of the stomach. Under such circumstances the tongue is liable to be coated with a thick fur, and the individual to suffer from a constant feeling of nausea.

If, however, the interval is too long, the system has become exhausted and the stomach goes on strike. By the time the meal is taken, the supply of gastric fluid has failed. If a long interval between any two meals is unavoidable, as for instance where a man has to have his breakfast at eight and cannot get his lunch until half-past one, it is better to take some light food in the meantime. This prevents the sense of exhaustion, and does not hinder the stomach from doing its work when it is called upon. Otherwise the man is apt to get a headache before he gets his meal, and indigestion after he has taken it.

This is a very different matter from the habit of eating between meals, whether it be in regard to sweets or to heavier articles of diet. There is a form of hunger known as “false.” It comes on an hour or two after meals, and is due to the irritation of undigested food in the stomach. As it is often accompanied by a sensation of sinking, people sometimes take some food, such as beef-tea or strong soup, to keep themselves up, as they term it. The result is confusion worse confounded, and if the process is repeated too frequently serious damage may be inflicted on the digestive organs.

[Sidenote: Diet and breakdowns.]

I have dealt at considerable length with this question of diet, simply because it has such an important bearing on the subject of breakdowns. There is no single path that leads to breakdowns, the way thither is rather a tangled maze of paths, along which people stumble blindly until they suddenly find themselves at an _impasse_. Yet the point at which they first left the high road of health consists in most cases of a mistake or series of mistakes in regard to their food and the manner in which they take it.

[Sidenote: The old style.]

The digestive troubles of the present day are very different from those of a century ago. “The fine old English gentleman, one of the olden style,” consumed an enormous breakfast and a still more enormous dinner, washing down vast quantities of food with great draughts of beer or wine. Every now and then he was laid up with a stomach-ache or an attack of gout, and for a day or two made the welkin ring with his upbraidings; then he turned up again, as fresh as any young buck, and went on his way rejoicing until the next attack laid him by the heels.

We marvel that he survived to tell the tale. “I should be dead in a week if I did such things,” one of my readers probably remarks. Yes, but the hale old chap led a different sort of life from that which we lead to-day. He spent most of his time in the saddle or in walking about the country-side. Moreover, the food he ate was of such a solid nature that he was bound to chew it well before he could swallow it. And the bilious or gouty attacks from which he suffered afforded a welcome respite to the whole system, giving it the chance to throw off a large amount of deleterious matter.

[Sidenote: The present style.]

There is no comparison between such a process as this and the continued remorseless poisoning from which many people suffer in these days as a result of dietetic mistakes. And this poison finds an easy victim in the constitutions of to-day. These hearty blades of olden times did not impose much strain on their nervous systems. They lived nearer to Nature instead of cooping themselves up in offices and businesses, straining body and mind in the struggle to make a livelihood or a fortune. All the more reason why we should take infinitely more care in regard to our diet nowadays than our ancestors did.

At a dinner party some years ago one of the guests was a sallow, dyspeptic-looking individual, of a melancholy cast of countenance, and with nerves written in large characters all over him. In fact, the state of his nerves constituted the chief part of his conversation, to the utter boredom of the lady he had taken in to dinner.

It appeared that he was always tired and depressed, and could not make out why it was. He had taken tonics and gone for holidays to various health resorts, but had gained not the slightest benefit.

He might have obtained some glimmering of the truth if he had placed a mirror in front of him as he dined, or even if he had only stopped to think. For he ate rapidly, almost ravenously, of every course that was set before him, bolting it down with scarcely any attempt at mastication, which the present style of preparing food renders only too easy. “He was bound to make a good dinner,” he said, as his business was of such an arduous and worrying nature that he rarely had time to get any lunch. At the conclusion of the meal he apologised for taking out of his pocket a box of digestive tablets. He was forced to have them, he explained, as he was a martyr to dyspepsia.

Yet ten years before this man had been a strong, healthy athlete. Now he had become a wreck, and his life was a burden to him. Not only was he incapable of doing his work properly or of enjoying his pleasures, but he lived in a constant dread of a nervous breakdown. And the probability is that unless he has reformed his ways of eating that catastrophe has happened to him ere this.