(from a negative, and μετά, to digείν), indigestion.

Abstemiousness and excess are alike causes of indigestion. An over-diffusion of the stomach may in some measure injure its proper tone; and long fasting, by inducing a bad quality in the juices secreted into the the stomach, renders it feeble, and generates wind. Hard drinking, and any of the caules of an anorexy, also injure digestion.

The columbo root is said to be particularly useful when the stomach is languid, the appetite defective, digestion with difficulty carried on, or when a nausea with flatulency attends. It is prescribed in substance, with any grateful aromatic, or infused in Madeira wine, now and then interposing gentle doles of the tincture of rhubarb.

A mixture of mustard seed with the columbo root is of admirable utility in complaints of this kind; particularly where acidity and flatulence prevail much in the prime vice.