The modern custom of drinking this inviting beverage during, or immediately after dinner, has been a pregnant source of dyspepsia. By inflating the stomach at such a period, we inevitably counteract those muscular contractions which are essential to chymification. The quantity of soda thus introduced scarcely deserves notice: with the exception of the carbonic acid gas1, it may be regarded as water, more mischievous only in consequence of the exhilarating quality inducing us to take it at a period at which we should not require the more simple fluid.

1 Late discoveries have shown, that the carbonic acid exists in a liquid state in soda water; if then it be hastily swallowed, it will rob the stomach of a certain portion of heat, as it passes from a liquid into a gaseous state. It will therefore cool as well as distend that organ.