Methods for inferring the state of the stomach

The signs by which a conclusion about the state of the stomach is drawn are, firstly, the quality of food in relation to its tolerability or intolerance, digestion and eruption. They are also judged by the urge to eat and the urge to drink, by the movement and trembling of the stomach, similar to gastric heart failure, and by hiccups. Indicators are also the condition of the mouth  what the mouth tastes like, whether the mouth is wet or dry, rough or smooth and what smell it has, eruptions coming out of the stomach in the form of feces and vomit, winds emitted with or without noise, rising winds, i.e. belching , delayed winds, that is, rumbling, complexion and membranes of the mouth, pain and painful sensations, the complicity of other organs and, finally, foods, drinks and medicines suitable for the stomach or harmful to it.

As for the conclusion about food tolerance or intolerance, that is, the stomach tolerates only a small amount of food, less than usual, which means it suffers from weakness caused by one of the reasons that gives rise to stomach weakness, and if it takes food in the usual amount, it means it has strength preserved.

Conclusion based on feces and what comes out of the stomach. As for stool, smooth stool, medium in color and smell, indicates good digestion, and good digestion indicates sufficient strength of the stomach, while strength of the stomach indicates the balance of his nature. The eruption of undigested food indicates a weak stomach and a disorder in its nature. The color of the stool indicates what kind of matter is in the stomach. If the stool is soft and smelly, this means that it came out of the stomach prematurely, since the stomach did not hold it well due to weak holding power. Lack of softness does not indicate such a disorder, but a weakness of the digestive power.

Conclusion on the sound of the winds. Among other nonsense, they say that the descending winds are a sign of the strength of the stomach, and very loud winds are a sign of good digestion and strength, as well as the slight stench of the winds. However, it will be correct to say about this that the descent of the winds does not indicate strength, but weakness, but this weakness is less than the weakness that causes belching. As for the loud sound, if the loudness is due to the substance of the winds, it means they are thick, and if the cause is a large expelling force, this indicates some strength in the stomach. Rarefied, weak, soundless winds more accurately indicate strength than thick and loud winds, especially if their sound is not determined by the sending will of man. And loud winds coming out on their own indicate clouding of consciousness. As for the slight stench of the winds, it necessarily indicates good digestion, while a strong stench indicates its disorder; if there is no stench at all, this indicates that the food has not been digested at all.

Conclusion on hiccups. If a hiccupper feels heartburn, it means there is sour, caustic or bitter juice in the stomach, but if he feels fullness, it means there is wind in the stomach. If the hiccupper does not feel either one or the other and there is no thirst, it means that there is mucous juice in the stomach. If hiccups occur after bowel movements or after fever, then there is dryness.

As for the conclusion about thirst, thirst indicates a hot nature. If thirst is accompanied by nausea, this indicates bilious matter or salty mucous matter. If thirst goes away after the patient drinks hot water, this in most cases means that the matter is mucous, salty, with the properties of bavrac, and if thirst intensifies, it means that the matter is bilious.

Conclusion on the condition of the mouth and tongue. If the tongue during pain in the stomach is very rough and red, then this sometimes indicates a predominance of blood in the stomach or a hot blood tumor, and if the tongue is yellowish, then it means yellow gall disease. If the tongue is blackish, then the cause is black bile, if it is whitish, milky, then the cause is moisture, and if it is only dry, then the cause is dry stomach.

Conclusion on digestion. Digestion is good if the food contained in the stomach does not cause heaviness, rumbling, bloating, belching with a smoky or sour taste, hiccups, twitching or distension after digestion. The length of time food stays in the stomach should be moderate, and it should come out at the appointed time, neither earlier nor later. Sleep should be smooth and awakening should be easy and quick, eyes should not be swollen and there should be no heaviness in the head; nature should easily respond to the urge. The lower abdomen should be slightly swollen before bowel movement: this indicates that the stomach has well embraced the food and has completely absorbed it, and this indicator serves as a sign of the strength of the stomach and the consistency of the food in quantity and quality. And if the stomach does not absorb food properly and digests it poorly, this causes rumbling and frequent belching; then the food remains in the stomach for a long time or comes out earlier than expected.

Yellow bile does not have the property of interfering with digestion so much that it stops or decreases and the food remains raw, but sometimes it upsets it; Black bile tends to interfere with the ripening of food and digestion and at the same time upset it. As for mucus, mucus is more upsetting. Know that if there is no tumor or ulcer in the stomach and the food is not spoiled, then the stomach does not cook well, which means the reason is a disorder of nature. Most often it occurs from cold or moisture, followed by hot disorder and then dry.

As for the conclusion on pain in the stomach, bursting pain, for example, indicates winds, pain with heaviness indicates fullness, and burning pain indicates the presence of sour, acrid, tart or bitter juice.

When making conclusions about appetite, they proceed either from the strengthening, weakening or disappearance of appetite, or from the varieties of its manifestation. Sometimes, for example, thirst prevails, sometimes you want something cold, sometimes you want something sour, and sometimes you feel thirsty and at the same time crave drying, salty and caustic foods. Often you want something caustic, salty, and sour at the same time, because such substances have a common property of tearing off sour juice; such a desire indicates a weak stomach, for a strong stomach is prone to oily foods. Sometimes there is an attraction to bad, contrary to nature things, for example, someone wants coal, ushnana and the like, the reason for this is a bad, foreign juice that does not correspond to praiseworthy juices. When the sense of taste is healthy, then the appetite does not value any taste higher than sweet, and if the appetite is upset and has an aversion to sweets, then there is a disease. If a person craves fatty foods, it means his stomach is tight, compacted and dry. If the nature is disgusted by hot foods and is inclined to cold substances due to their coldness, it means there is heat in the stomach, and if you want hot foods, it means there is cold in the stomach; if you want something tearing, sour and caustic, it means there is viscous juice in the stomach. With a hot stomach, you want water more than food. Sometimes the intensity of the heat in the stomach arouses severe hunger due to the assimilation of food, the desire to replace what has been digested, and a burning sensation. This is a type of hunger that cannot be tolerated at all, and is accompanied by fainting, especially if food is delayed. In the stomach, into which acidic black bile and mucus are poured, appetite increases if the amount of these juices is not so great as to cause a decrease in appetite. The appetite in such a stomach intensifies and becomes “dog-like” for reasons that we will mention in the paragraph about “dog” appetite.

Know that the appetite for food is inherent in all organs, but this community is natural and it arises as a result of connections between organs generated by the requirements of nourishing and attractive forces. The stomach has a special, animal appetite, because the stomach is sensitive. It happens that some people fast for a long time and then eat a lot, but they do not experience indigestion, they do not pass a lot of feces during bowel movements and the body does not get fat from this; the reason for this circumstance is the strong and rapid assimilation of food and the healthy state of the digestive force and the hungry attracting force.

Conclusion according to taste in mouth. Bitter taste indicates heat and yellow bile in the stomach, and sour in most cases indicates cold in the stomach, but not as strong as cold, in which food is not digested at all. Sometimes a sour taste indicates low heat and moisture. The heat causes the moisture to boil, but then leaves it, unable to ripen the food, and an acid similar to that of grape juice appears in the mouth. After all, grape juice becomes sour when it cools, and it also becomes sour when it boils from a little heat. Sometimes acid in the mouth appears due to the outpouring of acidic matter from the spleen into the stomach. Acid from the spleen increases appetite, increases bloating and rumbling, spoils digestion and causes sour belching. A bland taste indicates bland mucus, while a salty taste indicates salty mucus. An unusual, bad and disgusting taste sometimes indicates foreign, putrefying, malignant juices in the stomach.

Conclusion on vomiting. When only nausea is felt, it means that the matter has taken refuge in the stomach and has been absorbed into it, and if there is slight vomiting, this indicates that the matter has been poured into the cavity of the stomach. If there is vomiting and nausea that cannot tear the matter away, this indicates that both phenomena are taking place at the same time or that the juice has taken refuge in the stomach. Nausea occurs not only due to absorbed matter, it happens when the matter is not absorbed, if there is a lot of it, and it burns the stomach, or if there is little of it, but it is firmly mixed with food, rises from the bottom of the stomach to the mouth of the stomach and burns it. Therefore, juices are sometimes easily erupted before eating, if there are only a few of them. However, if nausea and vomiting appear from time to time, it means that matter is poured out after eating and is not easily ejected into the stomach from another organ, and if they are observed constantly, it means that matter is continuously generated in the stomach. Vomiting also indicates the type of matter by the color of the eruptions coming out and their taste: it indicates yellow bile, black bile and mucus, sour and salty, with a corresponding color and taste, glassy mucus with its color, and mucus descending from the brain with a color similar to color of nasal mucus. It also indicates the accompanying mucus discharge into other organs. If people who feel after eating that if they move too much, they will throw up the food in vomit. This indicates moisture at the mouth of the stomach or weakness of the stomach. Vomiting that occurs due to moisture also occurs when the stomach is empty, but vomiting that occurs from a weak stomach occurs only when the stomach is full.

As for the conclusion based on body color, complexion in most cases is a good indicator of the condition of the stomach and liver. Most stomach diseases are cold and damp, and the complexion of those who suffer from them is leaden, and if it is yellow, then it is yellowness turning into whiteness.

Conclusion on rumbling in the intestines. Rumbling indicates that the stomach is weak and does not absorb food substances and wet stool well.

Judgment by saliva. The abundance and foaminess of the saliva indicate the moisture of the stomach, which sends out watery saliva; Drying of saliva in the mouth and its dryness indicates the dryness of the stomach, and hot saliva indicates its warmth, if there are other signs that help establish that the stomach is hot.

Know that dry mouth comes in two ways. One of its types is true dryness, when there is no saliva in the mouth, and the second is false dryness, in which there is saliva, sticky and viscous, but it dries out from the hot steam reaching it. It is necessary to distinguish dry mouth from drying of viscous saliva in the mouth. The first indicates dryness of the stomach, and the second the presence of viscous moisture, which is either sent from the stomach or descends from the head.

The conclusion on belching is possible for the reason that belching is sometimes sour, sometimes offensive; sometimes it belches out steam, sometimes verdigris, sometimes smoke; sometimes the belching is greasy, sometimes it seems muddy, sometimes it is putrid, sometimes it smells like fish, sometimes it resembles the food that the patient took, and sometimes the belching is purely airy and does not have any other quality. This is the healthiest burp. If the belching is smoky and the cause of this is not a substance eaten that quickly turns into smoke, such as, for example, the yolks of boiled eggs or radishes, or dishes that acquire the quality of smoke when they are cooked and cooked, such as sweets cooked over a fire, etc. , then the reason for such belching is fiery stomach due to matter or pure disorder of nature. If the fiery nature of the stomach occurs with matter, then it manifests itself in one of the mentioned varieties; most often it occurs from yellow bile matter pouring into the stomach in the manner described above, or from acute catarrh flowing from the head, especially if the person is not bilious by nature. That the cause of belching is warmth of matter or simple warmth can also be concluded if the patient had previously eaten foods that were devoid of smokiness, such as barley bread. If such a person has a smoky belch, then the cause is the stomach. You should also see what kind of stools are bilious: if they are bilious, this indicates that the cause of the belching is the stomach, but if the stools are not bilious, it does not necessarily follow that the cause of the belching is not in the stomach, the cause is sometimes a simple disorder of its nature. Vomiting is also best indicated by the quality of the eruptions that come out during vomiting. Sometimes smoky belching indicates insomnia, in which the stomach does not find sufficient rest to digest food and burns and heats up.

When sour belching appears, which does not come from sour foods and not from foods that, if abused, turn into an acidic substance, then the reason for this is the coldness of the stomach, especially if you try to give foods that cannot sour, such as honey, and you see that they give rise to sour belching. Then consider that the cause of this is the coldness of the stomach, without matter or with matter; coldness in the presence of matter is always accompanied by a feeling of heaviness at the mouth of the stomach.

Sour belching, when it occurs, is most often observed in those suffering from the spillage of black bile and diseases of the spleen, as well as in people into whose stomach cold catarrhs ​​descend. The eructation sometimes becomes sour due to excessive heat, if the heat finds a sweet substance in the stomach, causes it to ferment and acidify it. This is indicated by the presence of signs of heat and burning during sour belching, bitterness in the mouth, thirst and relief from taking a cooling substance. One proof of the oxidizing effect of excessive heat on food in the stomach and on belching is that milk turns sour from heat faster than it turns sour from cold; vomiting also sometimes indicates the presence of matter in the stomach. If the belching is foul-smelling, then halitosis sometimes indicates rotting matter in the stomach, and sometimes indicates the presence of ulcers in the stomach. When belching has the smell of rotten meat, fish or mud, this is a sign of the presence of rotting moisture in the stomach; belching verdigris indicates the sharpness and warmth of matter when it is putrid. Such a burp is more likely to indicate warmth than a smoky one. If the belching is not smoky or sour, but it causes the mouth to taste the food taken a considerable time after eating it, this is a sign of the inability of the stomach to convert food into blood.

As for the conclusion about which food is suitable for the stomach and which is not suitable and harms it, then you should look at whether cooling or burning substances are suitable for the stomach, whether substantive or moisturizing substances are suitable for it. But first, one circumstance must be taken into account, because neglect of it, when it is not taken into account, often leads to a mistake, namely: cooling substances often weaken the fermentation of moist, thin, watery juice and reduce the salinity of the mucous matter, and the doctor thinks that this has brought benefit and that there was heat in the stomach. And hot substances often drive out the hot juice and cause it to dissolve, and the doctors think that this was beneficial and that the stomach was cold. But this is not so, and along with what was mentioned, other signs should be kept in mind.

Judging by what feels in the stomach. If the stomach does not feel a burning sensation, but a heaviness, then the matter is mucous, glassy, ​​and if a burning and burning sensation is felt, it means the matter is bitter and salty. A burning sensation without burning indicates the presence of acidic matter; if there is a burning sensation and a feeling of lightness, then it means that the matter is sparse or there is little of it, and if the burning sensation is accompanied by heaviness, then the matter is thick or there is a lot of it.

As for judging the phenomena of complicity, it is necessary, for example, to see whether the brain is suffering due to the causes of catarrh and whether it is not sending discharges into the stomach, whether the liver is generating excess bile, which is sent to the stomach, whether the spleen has become too weak, to remove black bile, whether it is swollen from the abundance of bile, this is recognition for a reason. Or they look to see if unusual and unstable visions arise before the eyes, if there are headaches and obsessions when the stomach is full, which go away when the stomach is empty, this especially applies to dizziness, if there are heart failures when the stomach is full or when the stomach is empty, or fainting or seizures. This is recognition by side effects.

If overflow causes ghostly visions, headaches, obsessions, various visions, heart failure or deep sleep, it means that the stomach is full and weak and suffers from a disorder of nature. And if interruptions, headaches, fainting and delusions occur when the stomach is empty, this is a sign that the stomach is accepting bile or burning juice, which goes to the mouth of the stomach when it is empty, or black gall juice, you know how to distinguish this, based on all the signs we told you, or it could be cold juice. If the juices are in the lower part of the stomach, then the headaches, epileptic seizures, fainting and cramps they cause are insignificant. As for the signs indicating the condition of the stomach with its complicity in diseases of other organs, the signs are cerebral, for example, confusion, hibernation, rigor, obsession, cardiac fainting, interruptions, pulse disorder, or general, for example, cessation of breathing, difficulty it or disorder.