The Western Democrat

The Stomach and the Mind.

Much of our conduct depends, no doubt, upon the character of the food we eat. Perhaps, indeed, the nature of our meals govern the nature of our impulses more than we are inclined to admit, because none of us relish well the abandonment of our idea of free agency. Bonaparte used to attribute the loss of one of his battles to a poor dinner, which at the time disturbed his digestion. How many of our misjudgments—how many of our deliberate errors —how many of our unkindnesses, our cruelties, our acts of thoughtlessness and recklessness, may be actually owing to a cause of the same character?

We eat something that deranges the condition of the system. Through the stomachic nerve that derangement immediately affects the brain. Moroseness succeeds to amiability; and under its influence we do that which would shock our sensibility at any other moment. Or, perhaps a gastric irregularity is the common result of an over indulgence in wholesome food. The liver is affected, and in this affection the brain profoundly sympathises. The temper is soured; the understanding is narrowed; the prejudices are strengthened; generous impulses are subdued; selfishness, originated by physical disturbances, which perpetually distract the mind's attention, becomes a chronic mental disorder; the feeling of charity dies out; we live for ourselves alone; we have no care for others; and all this change of nature is the consequence of injudicious diet.