Some articles of diet, for example lettuces, contain a distinctly soporific principle resembling opium in its effects.1 Speaking generally, however, it may be concluded that the mental and physical result of having fed comfortably creates a feeling of satisfaction that conduces to sleep, and a habit of sleeping after meals is, therefore, readily formed. It is, nevertheless, injurious to give way to this inclination. Notwithstanding all that has been said and written about digestion taking place during sleep, it cannot certainly proceed so rapidly or healthily when the circulation is slow and the glandular system inactive as while the organism is awake and moderately exercised. Therefore the aim should be to feed well and leave a sufficient interval after the last heavy meal to allow of the food taken being digested before retiring to rest. With a view to help the reader in carrying out this intention, I will reproduce the conclusions at which physiologists have arrived as to the length of time a few of the more ordinary articles of food require to digest. From Beaumont's well-known table we may derive the following information: The lettuce has been famous since the time of Galen, who believed himself to have found relief from sleeplessness by taking it at night. Tripe and pigs' feet should digest, so far as the stomach is concerned, in one hour. Scarcely any other article of food disappears so rapidly. Fresh eggs whipped, fresh salmon trout boiled or fried, venison steak broiled (1.35), barley soup boiled, sweet mellow apples, and brains (1.45) take one hour and a half, or a few minutes more to digest. Milk, eggs, raw, or roasted (2.15), codfish (cured dry) boiled, and sour apples take two hours or a little over. Soft boiled eggs (3.00), baked custard (2.45), oysters raw (2.55), sucking-pig roasted (2.30), lamb broiled (2.30), beef underdone, roasted (3.00), or broiled (3.00), also boiled if eaten with mustard (3.10), eaten with salt only (3.36), mutton broiled or boiled (3.00) roasted (3.15), salt pork stewed (3.00), pork broiled (3.15), turkey wild (2.18), domesticated (2.25), goose wild (2.30), chicken fricasseed (2.45), bread (3.15), most soups (3.00 to 3.30), and ordinary vegetables, take from two hours and a half to three hours; for some simple articles, e.g., fresh wheaten bread (3.30), the period is three hours and a half. Roast pork (5.15) and boiled cabbage (4.30) may stand for a class of food which takes about five hours to digest, and the time required for the disposal of fried beef, veal, duck, domesticated or wild, soup made of beef vegetables and bread, marrow-bone soup, and a dish so commonly deemed digestible as fowls, whether roasted or boiled, is over four hours. Some of these statements may occasion surprise, but, it is desirable the facts should be recognised. The time occupied in digestion is not, of course, the only matter to be considered in estimating the relative value of different kinds of food; but if, as I contend, digestion should be complete, or very nearly complete, as to the process which takes place in the stomach, before sleep is attempted, it follows that a meal taken within two hours of going to bed should be light, and some of what are considered the simplest articles of diet ought to be avoided. The sleep induced by heavy feeding is not natural, while that which follows upon the use of stimulants is, beyond question, a condition of blood-poisoning and stupor. It may be expedient in some cases to produce this stupor, but it should be understood that the state into which the brain is thrown is not sleep, and if natural, sleep follows, that is a contingency, not the primary effect of the food eaten or the alcoholic beverage imbibed. END. OF WORKS ON Science and Art, General Literature. London: MR. DAVID BOGUE begs to announce that he has removed the business, which since the decease of Mr. Hardwicke he has carried on at 192, Piccadilly under the style of HARDWICKE AND BOGUE, to more commodious premises at No. 3, ST. MARTIN'S PLACE, TRAFALGAR SQUARE, W.C. After this date the business will be continued in the name of MR. DAVID BOGUE only. July 1, 1879. |