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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: discovered the true cause of this disease; it is my sensibility that
is killing me. Indeed, all our feelings affect the gastric centre."
"Then do you mean," I said, smiling, "that the best-hearted people die
of their stomachs?"
"Don't laugh, Felix; nothing is more absolutely true. Too keen a
sensibility increases the play of the sympathetic nerve; these
excitements of feeling keep the mucous membrane of the stomach in a
state of constant irritation. If this state continues it deranges, at
first insensibly, the digestive functions; the secretions change, the
appetite is impaired, and the digestion becomes capricious; sharp
pains are felt; they grow worse day by day, and more frequent; then
The Lily of the Valley |
