[p. 68] unstrained
ptisans; they also would suffer who made use of the juice alone; and
so also they would suffer who took merely drink, but these least of
all.
PART 9
One may derive information from the regimen of persons in good health
what things are proper; for if it appear that there is a great difference
whether the diet be so and so, in other respects, but more especially
in the changes, how can it be otherwise in diseases, and more especially
in the most acute? But it is well ascertained that even a faulty diet
of food and drink steadily persevered in, is safer in the main as
regards health than if one suddenly change it to another. Wherefore,
in the case of persons who take two meals in the day, or of those
who take a single meal, sudden changes induce suffering and weakness;
and thus persons who have not been accustomed to dine, if they shall
take dinner, immediately become weak, have heaviness over their whole
body, and become feeble and languid, and if, in addition, they take
supper, they will have acid eructations, and some will have diarrhoea
whose bowels were previously dry, and not having been accustomed to
be twice swelled out with food and to digest it twice a day, have
been loaded beyond their wont. It is beneficial, in such cases, to
counterbalance this change, for one should sleep after dinner, as
if passing the night, and guard against cold in winter and heat in
summer; or, if the person cannot sleep, he may stroll about slowly,
but without making stops, for a good while, take no supper, or, at
all events, eat little, and only things that are not unwholesome,
and still more avoid drink, and especially water. Such a person will
suffer still more if he take three full meals in the day, and more
still if he take more meals; and yet there are many persons who readily
bear to take three full meals in the day, provided they are so accustomed.
And, moreover, those who have been in the habit of eating twice a
day, if they omit dinner, become feeble and powerless, averse to all
work, and have heartburn; their bowels seem, as it were, to hang loose,
their urine is hot and green, and the excrement is parched; in some
the mouth is bitter, the eyes are hollow, the temples throb, and the
extremities are cold, and the most of those who have thus missed their
dinner cannot eat supper; or, if they do
|
