MR. WHITE,--I am so unfortunate as to be the wife of a dyspeptic man,
and shall find some relief if you will permit me to spread my
complaints upon the pages of your Messenger. Men are "_April when they
woo, December when they wed_," as I have found to my cost. My husband
was once as tender and affectionate as I could wish, but poor man he is
now totally changed; I suppose it is owing to his having the dyspepsia.
He is so peevish and fretful I hardly dare speak to him;
"He's always compleenin frae mornin to e'enin;"
and it is impossible to keep pace with the endless variety of his
aliments. If I happen to make a mistake and inquire after the wrong
pain, he flies into a violent passion and reproaches me for a want of
sympathy in his sufferings. It was but yesterday I happened to say, my
dear how is the pain in your back? [I had forgotten it was his side.]
This was enough; he cursed matrimony and swore it was the vilest of all
institutions; that a wife was nothing more than a legalized tormentor;
that if he were single, he would not marry any woman under the sun--no,
not if she had a bulse of diamonds torn from a Begum's ear, and much
more in the same strain; and at last cooling down, he asked me if I did
not remember that his last pain was a pain in the side, and then
entered into such a history of his malady, that I sorely regretted I
had opened my lips upon the subject. What right have we to worry other
people thus with our maladies? I never tell mine to any but the doctor,
because I know that nobody else listens, and I doubt very much whether
_he_ does half his time. If any one gives my husband the common
salutation of how d'ye do? oh dear, he begins at the beginning of his
disease, [like an old gentleman of my acquaintance who always begins at
the Revolution,] and traces it down through all its variations for the
last five years--tells all the remedies he has used and their effects,
until you may see a half suppressed smile lurking about the lips of the
interrogator, which increases at length to so broad a grin, that I am
in agony for the consequences. He has tried in turn every remedy of
every quack upon earth, and has gone so far as to punch himself almost
to death with his _own fists_, by the advice of one Halsted. At first
he is always pleased with the medicine, but at the end of two or three
days he protests that he is worse, much worse; and vents his spleen
upon the physic, the inventor, and upon me for permitting him to use
such vile trash. Sometimes he comes to me and tells me exultingly that
he has at last found out the panacea--the grand catholicon for all his
sufferings. "My dear B----," he will say, "let me explain to you the
philosophy of this matter. When food is taken into the human stomach,
if it cannot undergo a proper digestion it goes through the
putrefactive process; just such a process as would take place in animal
or other substances, if exposed to the action of heat and moisture in
the open air: a quantity of carbonic acid gas is disengaged, and this
gas filling the stomach acts by mechanical pressure, and thus produces
the pain I feel. Now I have discovered that in consequence of my habit
of eating fast, my food is not sufficiently _triturated_, and of course
the gastric juice [heaven help me!] cannot act upon it; and I am
exactly in the situation of the sheep or any other ruminating animal,
who swallows the herbage whole, and then _regurgitates_, that it may
undergo a better mastication. Well what then is the remedy? I will tell
you; I will make John pound my food in a mortar, which will supply the
necessary trituration, and thus I shall be a well man." He sent off
immediately to a druggist and purchased a nice little wedge-wood
mortar, and there stood John every day behind his chair, pounding his
meat, bread and vegetables, into a revolting mass, until my poor ears
were well nigh deafened with the shrill din of the pestle against the
sides of the mortar. Was ever woman so beset? At the end of a week,
finding himself no better, he threw the mortar, pestle and all at
John's head, and would certainly have pounded _him_ to death but for a
fortunate dodge, which permitted the mortar to come in contact with my
china press, where it made sad havoc among my most valuable ware. He
was very glad he said, because I had no business to let the press stand
there. It was on the tip of my tongue to say, "bray a fool in a
mortar," &c., but I checked the impulse, and mildly said, I was very
sorry indeed that he could get no relief. This somewhat mollified him,
and the next day he came to me and apologized for what he had done, and
promised to repair the damage by making me a handsome present; but this
calm was of short duration, for he soon relapsed into gloom--and as he
sat by the fire smoking his pipe, he all at once declared that it must
have been the cursed tobacco which had poisoned his existence; that
during the combustion of the tobacco an oil was disengaged, which
mixing with the saliva, was taken up by absorption into his lungs, and
had eaten them to a honeycomb. John was immediately called: "Here,"
said he, "John, take this pipe, and d'ye hear sir, hide it--hide it
where I never can find it again." John accordingly took the pipe, but
struggled in vain to choke his laughter. Before he could escape from
the room, he burst out into such a loud, distinct, irrepressible ha!
ha! that there was no mistaking the thing, and he was soundly caned for
his involuntary breach of decorum. About three days after this, in the
evening after tea, my husband's favorite time for smoking, I observed
him very restless indeed; he rose, walked about the room, sat down,
whistled, hummed a tune, and rose again. At last he began to rummage
about the wainscoat and mantlepiece, and behind the book case, and
suddenly turning round he called John in a softened voice; "John, my
good fellow, where is my pipe? I must have left it in the study; do go
and look for it." John hesitated and grinned.--"What the devil is the
fellow laughing at? Begone sir, and bring my pipe immediately." John
speedily vanished. Turning to me, you see, said my husband, my unhappy
condition; my very servants turn me into ridicule, and you do not
reprove them for it. I could not reply, but felt anxious to point out
to him that he could never hope to be well, because he would not adhere
for a space of time sufficiently long to any plan whatever. His scheme
now is to eat nothing but cold bread. It must be set away in a pure
place to _ripen_, as he calls it. Hot bread just from the oven he says
is giving out carbon continually, and has not imbibed a sufficiency of
oxygen to make it wholesome. Can you forbear smiling my friend? Now I
know that there is nothing of literature in all this, unless the
chemical disquisitions of my wretched husband may be so considered; but
nevertheless I flatter myself you will give me a place in your
Messenger, because many a victim of dyspepsia may look in this mirror
and see himself.