Excerpt from The Stomach: Its Disorders, and How to Cure Them AN eminent comparative anatomist defines an animal as a stomach with various organs appended, a definition which presents in a very clear light the relative importance of. The stomach in the association of the organs and structures which constitute the human as well as the animal body. The stomach must certainly be regarded as the center of the nutritive proc esses of the body, and any derangement of its functions must therefore result in disorder of the entire organism. The close relation between the condition of the stomach and that of the mind has been observed even by the most primitive nations, and has led some of them to regard the stomach as the veritable seat of the soul. There is sound truth in the ancient German adage, As a man eateth, so is he. It may truly be said that disorders of digestion are the most prevalent of all human ills, and investigators within the last twenty years have been making more and more clear the fact that the great majority of diseases are primarily due to derange ment of the digestive processes. The remarkable researches of Professor Bouchard, of Paris, and others, have shown that such diseases as consumption, typhoid fever. And cholera, as well as Bright's disease and analogous maladies, are indirectly, if not directly, due to a disordered condition of the stomach, as the result of which the defenses of the body are broken down, and infection rendered possible. Notwithstanding the great prevalence of stomach disorders, and the large amount of knowledge and experience which have been accumulated by the profession in regard to them within the last few years, it is nevertheless true that no other class of curable disorders has more frequently baffled the best directed efforts of medical practitioners. This is doubtless owing to the imperfect knowledge of the processes of digestion and of the nature of the disorders to which the digestive organs are subject which has prevailed from the earliest times to within a comparatively brief period. Within the last score of years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.