SURFEIT, in medicine, a sickness with a sensation of a load at the stomach, usually proceeding from some error in diet, either with regard to the quantity or quality of the food taken. Sometimes, however, a surfeit is only a plethora from indolence and full but improper feeding; in which case perspiration is defective, and eruptions form themselves on the skin.
A surfeit from animal-food, as muscles, putrid flesh, &c. is best remedied by the use of vegetable acids, which may be taken diluted with water, a vomit being premised, and this even though a vomiting and purging both attend.
When an excess of feeding is the cause, the prime
vice being evacuated, and the nature of the plethora attended to, that the load may be properly evacuated, the indication of cure will be, to recover the perspiratory discharge, consistent with which diuretics may be used in preference to medicines which produce any other evacuation.