He lost his appetite and his
spirits, and his digestion was sadly disordered. His friends
endeavoured to console him by telling him that dyspepsia was the
national disease of Vraibleusia; that its connection with civil and
religious liberty was indissoluble; that every man, woman, and child
above fifteen in the island was a martyr to it; that it was occasioned
by their rapid mode of despatching their meals, which again was
occasioned by the little time which the most active nation in the world
could afford to bestow upon such a losing business as eating.
All this was no consolation to a man who had lost his appetite; and so
Popanilla sent for a gentleman who, he was told, was the most eminent
physician in the island. The most eminent physician, when he arrived,
would not listen to a single syllable that his patient wished to address
to him. He told Popanilla that his disorder was 'decidedly liver;' that
it was occasioned by his eating his meat before his bread instead of
after it, and drinking at the end of the first course instead of the
beginning of the second; that he had only to correct these ruinous
habits, and that he would then regain his tone.
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