But the customs
of society, which present an incessant change, and a great variety of
food, with those various condiments which stimulate appetite, lead
almost every person very frequently to eat merely to gratify the palate,
after the stomach has been abundantly supplied, so that hunger has
ceased.
When too great a supply of food is put into the stomach, the gastric
juice dissolves only that portion which the wants of the system demand.
Most of the remainder is ejected, in an unprepared state; the absorbents
take portions of it into the system; and all the various functions of
the body, which depend on the ministries of the blood, are thus
gradually and imperceptibly injured. Very often, intemperance in eating
produces immediate results, such as colic, headaches, pains of
indigestion, and vertigo.
But the more general result is a gradual undermining of all parts of
the human frame; this imperceptibly shortening life, by so weakening
the constitution, that it is ready to yield, at every point, to any
uncommon risk or exposure. Thousands and thousands are parsing out of
the world, from diseases occasioned by exposures which a healthy
constitution could meet without any danger.
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