This is, perhaps, the most natural, and not the least important of our meals; for, since many hours must have intervened since the last meal, the stomach ought to be in a condition to receive a fresh supply of aliment. As all the food in the body has, during the night, been digested, we might presume, that a person in the morning ought to feel an appetite on rising. This, however, is not always the fact; the gastric juice may not be secreted in any quantity during sleep, while the muscular energies of the stomach, although invigorated by repose, are not immediately called into action: it is therefore advisable to allow an interval to pass before we commence the meal of breakfast. We seem to depart more from the custom of our hardy ancestors, with regard to breakfast, than any other meal. A maid of honour in the court of Elizabeth breakfasted upon beef, and drank ale after it; while the sportsman, and even the day-labourer of the present day, frequently breakfast upon tea. The periods of their meals, however, were so generally different from those of modern times, that we cannot establish any useful comparison between them, without taking into consideration the collateral circumstances which must have influenced their operation.

The solidity of our breakfast should be regulated by the labour and exercise to be taken, and to the time of dining. Where the dinner hour is late, we should recommend a more nutritious meal, or what the French call un dejeuner a la fourchette, in order to supersede the necessity of luncheon. At the same time it must be remembered, that dyspeptic invalids are frequently incommoded by such a repast, if it be copious. Heartburn is a common effect of a heavy breakfast, especially if it be accompanied with much diluting liquid; and a question has consequently arisen as to the propriety of taking much fluid on these occasions. Some have recommended a dry breakfast, as peculiarly wholesome: and we have been told, that Marcus Antoninus made it a rule to eat a hard biscuit the moment he got up. I think, however, it will not be difficult to show the reasons why liquids are essentially necessary at this meal. To say nothing of the instinctive desire which we all feel for them, it is evident that there is a certain acrimony and rankness in all our secretions at that time; the breath has frequently a peculiar taint in the morning, which is not perceptible at subsequent periods of the day.

This may be explained by the loss which the fluids of the body have sustained by perspiration, as well as by the quality of newly-elaborated matter introduced into the circulation during sleep. The experiments of Sanctorius have fully demonstrated the superior power of sleep in promoting the perspiration; insomuch, that a person sleeping healthily, and without any unnatural means to promote it, will, in a given space of time, perspire insensibly twice as much as when awake. This fact is sufficient to prove the necessity of a liquid breakfast. Nor must we overlook the highly active state of the absorbent system at this period of the day, arising, no doubt, from the expenditure of fluids to which we allude. This is shown by the facility with which invalids are enabled to dispose of large draughts of mineral water before breakfast, which at any other period of the day would be followed by the most painful oppression. It also explains the nutritive and restorative influence of milk, when taken in the early morning. Every physician, in the course of his practice, must have been consulted upon the propriety of taking meat, tea, or coffee, at breakfast.

I shall, therefore, offer to the profession the results of my experience upon this subject; and I am encouraged in this duty by a conviction of the advantages which have arisen from my view of the question. A person who has not strong powers of digestion is frequently distressed by the usual association of tea with bread and butter, or, what is more injurious, with hot buttered toast or muffin; the oily part of which is separated by the heat of the liquid, and remains in the stomach, exciting, on its cardiac orifice, an irritation which produces the sensation of heartburn. On such occasions I always recommend dry toast, without any addition. New bread, or spongy rolls, should be carefully avoided. Tea, to many persons, is a beverage which contains too little nutriment: I have therefore found barley-water, or a thin gruel, a very useful substitute. A gentleman some time since applied to me, in consequence of an acidity which constantly tormented him during the interval between breakfast and dinner, but at no other period of the day: he had tried the effects of milk, tea, coffee, and cocoa, but uniformly without success. I advised him to eat toasted bread, with a slice of the lean part of cold mutton, and to drink a large cup of warm barley-water, for the purpose of dilution.

Since the adoption of this plan he has entirely lost his complaint, and continues to enjoy his morning diversions without molestation. Hard eggs, although they require a long period for their digestion, are not generally offensive to the stomach; they may therefore be taken with propriety, whenever, from necessity or choice, the dinner is appointed at a late season.

137. In the course of my own practice I have not unfrequently been called upon to advise a patient under the following circumstances. He rises in the morning without much inclination for breakfast; but such are his occupations that he is compelled to "force down" a substantial repast, in order to protect himself against the inanition which would otherwise take place during the day, his dinner being unavoidably postponed to six or seven o'clock. Should he take but a moderate breakfast, he is compelled to eat a luncheon at three o'clock, by which his dinner is rendered indigestible. I will tell the reader the plan which I have usually directed with success under such circumstances. If, at your usual breakfast hour, the stomach should not yet be in the humour for food, take a cup of tea, or thin gruel, and a piece of dry toast, or a biscuit; and, after the lapse of two or three hours, eat some cold mutton, a chop, or any other easily digestible meat. You will thus gain all the advantages of a substantial breakfast without its evils, and derive the profit of a luncheon without the chance of unfitting your stomach for the duties imposed upon it at dinner.

The following passage is extracted from a letter which I lately received from a gentleman resident in the vicinity of London, whose mercantile engagements required his attendance in town every morning. "I never was more obliged to any man than I am to you; you may remember I some time ago applied for your assistance under circumstances that rendered my life most uncomfortable; by following your advice the evil has been completely removed: and I absolutely feel ten years younger than I did eight months back. I hope that, in the next edition of your work, you will take some notice of my case, for the sake of those poor d - Is, who may be suffering in a similar manner. I have been attentively perusing all you have said about breakfast, but I cannot find any allusion to the plan you recommended to me.

You may, perhaps, not recollect the particulars of my case, and the difficulties in which this strange stomach of mine placed me. I told you that whenever I ate a hearty breakfast, I suffered for it the rest of the day; and, if I took a scanty one, I became so faint as to be obliged, in my own defence, to spoil my dinner by a luncheon. I now break my fast by a small basin-full of barley-water with milk, and a biscuit; two hours after which I find myself in trim for a chop, which carries me on comfortably till six o'clock, when I assure you I can make a most respectable dinner. The consequence of all this is, that I do not know I have a stomach, except, indeed, when it civilly reminds me that it is twelve and six o'clock. You perceive I can now look the enemy in the face, and laugh at the terrors which formerly frightened me almost to death. Is not this a good sign?" - Indeed it is, the very best and least equivocal sign of convalescence. If any of my medical readers should question the intimate connection between body and mind, between, as Sterne says, the outside and inside of a jacket which, ruffle but the one, and you will be sure to ruffle the other, all I can say is, that they must have very superficially observed the phenomena of disease.