CHAPTER VIII.
DIETETICS AND THERAPEUTICS.
The somewhat wearisome and minute details I have given as to seclusion, rest, massage, and electricity have prepared the way for a discussion of the dietetic and medicinal treatment which without them would be neither possible nor useful.
As to diet, we have to be guided somewhat by the previous condition and history of the patient.
It is difficult to treat any of these cases without a resort at some time more or less to the use of milk.

In most dyspeptic cases--and few neurasthenic women fail to be obstinately dyspeptic--milk given at the outset, and given alone by Karell's method for a fortnight or less, enormously simplifies our treatment.

Even after that, milk is the best and most easily managed addition to a general diet.

As to its use with rest and massage as an exclusive diet in obesity alone or in extreme fatness with anaemia, I spoke in a former edition with a confidence which has been increased by the added experience of physicians on both sides of the Atlantic.

Finally, there are exceptional cases of intestinal pain of obscure parentage or seemingly neuralgic, of dyspepsia incorrigible by other treatments, which, having resulted in grave general defects of nutrition, are best treated by several weeks of milk diet, combined with rest, massage, and electricity.