Genre:

Song, Drollery

Subjects:

Nutrition, Disease, Physiology

    Written from the perspective of a stomach dreading the punishment it will receive in digesting a whitebait dinner. Begins by threatening to punish men for giving it more work than it can do, action which will take the form of spoiling the figure and, if its powers are still overstrained, 'uneasiness and pain'. Proceeds to some of the other ghastly side effects of over-indulging on whitebait. These include inflaming the eyes, oppressing the heart and lungs, indigestion, bile, 'Headache, vertigo, noises in the ears', 'palpitations, qualms, and spasms, fears', and 'the stomach's great revenge, the gout'. Concludes by threatening the worst of all side-effects—'dropsy or paralysis'.