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Treatment (Every case of indigestion)

In every case of indigestion, the first thing the patient should do is to abstain from whatever may have tended to produce it. The diet should consist of animal food that is light, nourishing, and easily digested. Roasted beef or mutton is perhaps preferable to any other. Country air and constant exercise on horseback are invaluable remedies in this disease, which, as it is generally occasioned by a departure from natural habits and employments, must be relieved by a return to them. Flannel should be worn next the skin, and care taken to avoid cold or exposure to wet. A wine-glass of the infusion of bark and quassia (made by placing one ounce of powdered bark and one of ground quassia in a close vessel, to which is added a quart of boiling water; to be kept simmering near the fire until the whole is reduced to a pint), with ten or twelve drops of the elixir of vitriol, should be regularly taken, three times a day, for months. The bowels are to be kept open by some warm laxative as rhubarb, and the whole frame braced by the daily use of the cold bath. Weak spirits and water, or a single glass of sound old Madeira may be taken at dinner.

Much benefit has been found to result from a long-continued use of the wine of iron (made by taking iron-filings 4 ounces, and pouring on it 4 pints of Madeira wine; let it stand for a month, shaking it frequently), a glass of which may be taken twice a day. If the complaint arise from a diseased liver, recourse must be had to the plan laid down for its cure.

An attack of temporary indigestion may be treated by abstinence, rest, and a teaspoonful of magnesia, if the bowels be costive, otherwise a quarter of a teaspoonful of the bicarbonate of soda. Vomiting of Blood.