3--Diet Cure for Constipation

    The idea of cure-that by taking something--a drug fetish--intothe body, or by laying on of hands, or by the rubbing on of a medicamentum, or mumblinga prayer, or by incantation charm, or by inoculation--a cure can be effected, hasbecome so ingrained that diet--eating some particular food or food combinations,or food representing just the right number of heat units and the proper amount ofprotein, etc., etc.--must or will cure disease. The thought that the body can wabbleitself into health, if its environments and habits are not too belligerent, seemsnever to dawn on the average mind, and certainly never on the priests of the variouscuring systems, who know, God bless them, that if it were not for them, health wouldgo to the damnation bow-wows. This is especially true of public health officers.The sooner up-to-date public health officers are made to know this and their activitiesconfined to sanitation and care of food, the better. They have proved to be bullsin china shops when they have had anything to do with managing the sick, controllingepidemics, etc.

    The truth about cures is that eighty per cent, or perhapsmore, of those who fall sick get well in spite of the treatment. It should be popularknowledge that nature's push and pull is expended for health, and the so-called curesare pretty generally in opposition to natural order. (See Chapter 1.)

    Diet, or feeding the sick, is governed by one fundamentalprinciple, namely: fast, or feed so little that elimination will not be obstructed.It is easy to demonstrate, to those who have eyes with which to see, that obstructionsof all kinds will be overcome and secretions and excretions established if food iseither inhibited entirely, or given of such quality and light quantity as will notprevent the re-establishing of elimination. Any and all foods tend to check elimination.Fresh uncooked fruit and succulent vegetables are often referred to as eliminants,but it is just possible that these foods do not obstruct by overtaxing digestion,as do the more staple foods, such as bread and meat. The so-called eliminating foodsmay, and probably do, carry into the body the modicum of life, energy, enzyme orvitamin, needed to start the machinery--the elimination--necessary to expel the toxinsthat are obstructing nature in her never-ending struggle for health. The obstructivetendencies of food are why feeding in acute diseases is so disastrous and so productiveof crises (complications) in the treatment of chronic diseases as well as in acutediseases.

    The true dietitian must depreciate the lay, as well as theprofessional, idea that disease can be cured by dieting. Attempting to cure, withsome peculiar food, food combination, or preparation, is on the order of curing withdrugs or any supposed curing system. The dietitian must necessarily be an adventurer,and one who is ignorant of the real cause of disease. Indeed, the scientific dietitianknows the value of food in health, knows what the abuse of eating does for the well,as well as the sick; he knows that nature cures, and the only reason why man is sickis because he abuses his natural privileges. The commonest abuse is that of eatingimprudently, or abusing other functions of the body, thereby bringing on a stateof general enervation which curtails bodily efficiency, and of course the digestivefunction is reduced the same as all other functions. When this is true, obviouslyit requires less eating to be abusive (disease-provoking) when enervated than whenthe body was near normal resistance. Members of this class are often heard to say:"I'm a very small eater;" "Every one eats more than I do;" whichmay be true, but it does not signify that the small eater is not abusing his digestiveefficiency equally 'to those who eat much more, but who have much more digestivepower.

    After the above explanation, certainly no one will continueto look to diet as a cure or a specific for constipation. It is true that cookedsucculent vegetables are slightly laxative, that spinach and onions are more laxativethan other vegetables, but they are as innocent of power to cure constipation asbran bread or cathartic drugs.

    All fruit laxatives are more or less indigestible in gastriccatarrh and are inclined to fill the bowels with gas, causing in many people irritationof the rectum, piles and prolapsus. Laxative foods can be used as an auxiliary inthe treatment of constipation and other diseases, but never in the sense of a cure.

OXYGENATED AND DEOXYGENATED FOODS

    People generally are ignorant of the fact that fresh, uncookedfoods carry oxygen and are antiseptic. Foods carrying oxygen when eaten oppose acidity--opposethe development of fermentation. These foods are vitalized, they are potentized withenzyme-vitamine. (See chapter on water drinking.)

    Cooked starch, or the carbohydrate foods, when eaten beyonddigestive capacity, ferments and leads to acidosis-an intense type of Toxemia.

    The animal protein, when eaten beyond digestive capacity,undergoes putrefactive fermentation, developing acute septic or putrid fevers, orptomaine poisoning. Where this state exists for a long time scorbutic and scrofuloussymptoms manifest. Such symptoms--crises--or so-called diseases as scurvy, pyorrhea,tuberculosis, pernicious anemia, Bright's disease, goiter, Hodgkins's disease, cancer,and many others develop. The acute symptoms of putrefactive fermentation manifestin many crises, such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid, pneumonia, smallpox,laryngitis, asthma, hay fever, bronchitis and others.

     Raw fruit and vegetables (vegetable salads) eaten with starchor with meat, fish, or eggs, oppose fermentation and decomposition and the formationof septic poisoning. It can be said that all cases of septic toxemia and ptomainepoisoning could have been avoided if eating had been more moderate, and the mealswell-balanced with food charged with enzyme (vitamine) life--oxygen.

    One of the leading causes of constipation is the catarrhalinflammation that develops from eating devitalized foods--abstaining from fresh fruitand vegetables--which favors fermentation, bringing on local and intestinal putrefaction;the real cause being overeating of devitalized foods.

    It is a fact that uncooked fresh fruit and vegetables havepower to resist fermentation and putrefaction, and should point to the great necessityof man arranging to have uncooked fruit and fresh vegetable salads daily. Cookedfoods have lost their oxygen, hence their resistance to decay, and they break downand ferment or decompose quickly; whereas the raw fruits, cabbage, lettuce and saladmaterials resist decomposition for months, if kept in a dry, cool atmosphere.

    In feeding for constipation, it would be well to drop animalfood so as to avoid the strong possibility of putrefactive poisoning.

    Where enervation is great and the system much impaired, thepatient should be put to bed and fasted until through eliminating, then given a selectedlaxative diet; and often these foods disagree, which indicates that a longer fastis necessary. Diet is not all that is necessary; the mind must be poised, and a systematicplan of light exercise should be practiced daily. The mind as well as the body mustbe poised. All attention to food and fasting will fail in those of unpoised minds,in those who are irritable and apprehensive. Many people have no self-control andare food-drunkards; they are childish enough to resent restrictions; they want tobe cured if they can find a doctor who can do it without requiring an effort or sacrificeon their part. This is a class, and their names are legions, who undergo operationafter operation until they are utterly ruined for life; for every operation reducestheir resistance and carries them farther and farther from the possibility of a cure.The treatment that offers the only hope of restoration they spurn, and many wouldrather die than submit to it, for it requires complete reformation of mind and bodyhabits.

    Absolute self-control is the foundation on which a cure mustbe built. Perverted emotions--mental drunkenness--it is as necessary to cure as fooddrunkenness, or alcohol or drug inebriety. Nothing short of this foundation on whichto start the treatment promises anything. Given this start, the rest is easy, forin a short time relaxation of mind and body sets in, secretions and excretions becomeestablished, and health returns, with greater mental and physical efficiency thanhas ever been known before.

    The public mind is very material in its thinking on the subjectof health. It believes that the body can be whipped into health by drugs or manualmanipulation or some mechanical device. It is not prepared to believe that bodilyfunctioning is more often held so tightly in a mental grip that it can not move fromother causes. Few realize that the giving up of a grouchy habit will be followedin a short time by regular bowels. A dismissed fear often cures after thousands ofdollars have been spent in hunting a cure.

    After securing mental poise, many socalled incurable diseasesget better, and, if followed by right living, dependable health is established.

    Foods should be selected in keeping with their celluloseproperties; unless there is a great tendency for gas to form, the foods carryingmost cellulose should be eaten, but many patients are so distressed from gas distentionwhen they first begin to eat raw fruits and vegetables, especially apples, that acomplete fruit fast must be taken, and gruel or teakettle tea given. Prunes may beeaten when they agree. The more the patient is starch-poisoned, the more he willbe troubled with gas distention. This must be overcome or modified by having breadthoroughly dried and by thorough mastication and insalivation and eating very sparingly.Many, when put on fresh uncooked fruits, eat too much. Gas discomfort should be theguide; when there is much gas, the amount eaten must be reduced.

    Rough food, containing much cellulose, is the first foodremedy thought of when the physician's mind turns from cathartics, and all kindsof drug stimulation, enemas, suppositories, rectal dilators, etc., to laxative foods.

    Bran bread, graham bread, whole-wheat bread, bread containingflax-seed, oils, agar-agar, water-drinking, and many other bowel persuaders, arein daily use by the people and prescribed by the profession.

    The use of bran in constipation usually marks the earlieststate of dietetic evolution. When a physician begins to talk bran, eat bran, prescribebran, insist on bran, and can expatiate for hours on the virtues of bran, it is safeto say that he is in the early state of dietetic evolution. His next evolution indieting will bring him to the calorie and protein age, where he will spend his idlehours figuring out menus with an eye single to the correct number of calories (heatunits) and protein contained therein. If heat units and protein were all that isnecessary for a correct dietetic blend, then butter, oil, or sugar for heat, andeggs or cheese for protein, would fill the bill to a T. One may know, or think heknows, how many heat units and how much protein are required by a man of so manypounds' weight; and he may know how to figure out and properly blend menus whichwill contain just the required heat units and the proper weight of protein; yet heis many years removed from being a successful dietetic physician. Indeed, any laymanmay have all this knowledge, indeed be a dietitian--an expert food specialist--butit takes the dexterity of a physician to apply dietetic knowledge successfully. Thereis an artistic subtleness not possessed by the bull-in-the-china-shop methods. Withoutdoubt if man's body were an inanimate machine, made of iron, steel, brass, copper,and silver, and lined with gold, with all joints ball-bearing, and the balls madeof diamond, etc., etc., his food consumption could be figured to a fraction; butalas, alack, he is not, but, quite the contrary, he is an animate being that canstart and stop volitionally, and there is no way of measuring the amount of energyrequired to start and stop; indeed, the number of engineers that manipulate thesethrottle valves and stearing gears can not be seen, nor even known; hence their fitnessfor stopping, starting, and driving must be conjecture only. Man has a digestiveapparatus, and when he sleeps with his mind influence shut off he digests as an animal;when he is awake he digests as his mind will allow, and his mind will allow justas it is trained and disciplined. If the individual is mentally poised, he can doa lot of hard mental work without disturbing his digestive and nutritive functionsfurther than using energy that may be needed for digestion. Those who can think andthink hard with the wires down between their think tanks (brains) and their fireboxes (digestive organs) can get on without injury to their organisms. Those whocan labor for twelve hours a day, day in and day out, as the years go by, at hardwork, and have the aid of a poised mind--a mind that aids and directs the work--amind that is satisfied to spend its force in improving ways and methods of doingthe work with less expenditure of muscle power and turning out better products--canget on without unnecessary wear and tear.

    Disease results when the physical and mental are not pullingtogether; when the mental has become too high-toned for the physical. When a mancan not do the only work he has fitted himself for doing without complaining of hislot--without going to work reluctantly, watching the clock, and spending every hourfinding fault with everybody except himself-instead of giving the physical man thehelp of the mental man, they are divorced, and, as a divided house must fall, soit is with the man who fails to help his physical with his mental.

    The evil of mental and physical divorcement is what we calldisease. The work done by the body is coarse and unprofitable; the work done by themind is unfinished and finds a cheap market; and these troubles are called diseases,and the true physician spends his time in effecting a reconciliation of the divorcees.When a happy union is eff ected, disease vanishes.

    One of the first evidences of domestic unrest between a man'smind and his body is constipation. It always means a lack of poise, and it will takesomething more than punishing the bowels with all sorts of torture--physic and bran--tomake them move; and it requires more than counting calories and weighing proteinto constitute a diet.

    Whatever the cause for constipation, the effect is lost functionsof motility, secretion and excretion; and the cure must be the restoration of nerveenergy, the bringing back to the normal of secretions and excretions; then regularbowels will follow as the day follows the night.

    It is not necessary to take up bran and other rough foodsfor a separate study, for all can come under one head. The object of rough foodsis to prick and prod the bowels into activity. The eff ect is the same as proddinga jaded horse, or giving strychnine to a flagging heart; namely, it hastens to moreenervation--prostration.

    It is only a question of time when bowels that are forcedto act will cease to act-cease to respond to the irritation-except by the use ofmore and more powerful stimulants.

    No one has ever been cured of constipation by the use ofrough food-by bran or wholewheat or graham bread. These breads, like laxatives, willkeep the bowels regular for a time; but the end of their laxative effect comes, andthen a change in bowel stimulants must be had.

    A very serious objection to eating rough bread to keep thebowels moving is that too much is used--more bread than should be, and starch poisoningis developed. Those who are most constipated are often the very people who have theleast power to digest starch in this form; and, as a consequence, they are ofteninjured more than benefited by the use of bran. A remedy that does harm in one directionwhile palliating in another costs too much; it is a very short-sighted benefit.

    Dry beans and peas are rich in cellulose (beans 40 grs.,peas 28.5 grs. to the ounce); they stand at the head of vegetables in this regard,but both are quite unfit as a food for the severely constipated, for they are sohard to digest that they tax the digestion to the point of overthrowing what healththis class of people have. The rule is that there is colitis, either simple or membranous.If, however, beans are selected because of a limited supply or lack of more suitablefoods, no more than one teacupful of stewed or baked beans is to be eaten at a mealwith a combination salad or fresh uncooked vegetables. If berries can be had, theyare more laxative than apples and oranges.

    All green vegetables carry cellulose. Green peas rank firstin containing 9.5 grains per ounce, and onions 3.5 grains per ounce. All others areat the foot of the list. Green vegetables range in the amount of cellulose constituentfrom onions minimum to peas maximum.

    Green peas are very inclined to produce gas in the bowelsand should be eaten with salads and fruit, or, if meat is permissible, meat. Saladand peas make a well-balanced meal, and a minimum of gas will follow if masticatingand insalivating are attended to properly.

    When meat is eaten by the constipated, a large salad shouldbe eaten if nothing else is. It would be well to have the salad made by combiningequal parts of lettuce, tomatoes, spinach and celery in the winter time; in the summer,use cucumbers in place of celery. A dish of cooked spinach may be eaten also if acooked vegetable is desired.

CELLULOSE IN FRUITS

    The huckleberry stands at the head with a cellulose contentof sixty grains to the ounce; the other berries range lower to gooseberries, whichcontain about seventeen to the ounce. Figs carry twenty-two, pears fifteen, and otherdry fruits range down to apples, which contain only five grains to the ounce. Bananascarry less than one grain to the ounce. The physician will find himself many timesendeavoring to determine whether the discomfort from indigestion and gas is due tofermentation of starch, from careless chewing and insalivating, or from overeating.The two latter causes are common--much more common than generally recognized.

FOOD DEPRIVED OF LIFE

    It is more necessary in the treatment of constipationto eat foods that build general health than to eat foods because of theirlaxative influence. Indeed, laxative foods are not necessarily wholesome, and toooften they are quite unsuitable to the digestion of those who are very much in needof daily evacuations.

    To make this meaning clear, it should be known that thosewho have irritable stomachs, catarrhal stomachs--those who complain much of acidor sour stomach--those with sour eructations, often diagnosed hyperchlorhydria (excessof hydrochloric acid) cannot use prunes, figs, or any of the dried sweet fruits;indeed, any dried or dehydrated fruits and vegetables cause discomfort soon afterthey are eaten; even a drink of water will often excite the secretion of acid andcause the patient to complain of acidity-sour stomach.

    Foods as furnished by nature are correct--they representa synthesis* that man may imitate, but never duplicate. (*Synthesis: The artificialformation of compounds by mixing proximate principles; p. p. are the elements outof which thing--anything--is made.) The subtile elements, such as life, electricity,mind, love, hate, sorrow and all odors and aromas, escape the analyst. Foods cannever be compounded, for all the distinguishing elements--life and mind-impartingelements--are gone out of cooked and artificially prepared or preserved foods. Oneof the latest discoveries in preserving foodstuffs is wonderful from a conservative--preservativeand economic point of view; it is known as dehydrating; the process takes all thewater out of fruits and vegetables, reducing the bulk to such an extent that it enablesfood-venders to put what was originally six to ten carloads of foodstuffs into onecar. Foods brought into this state will keep any length of time. To use them, allthat is necessary to restore them to their pristine state is to soak them in waterfor several hours, when, behold the modern miracle! The Egyptians beaten at theirwonderful art of immortalization, and that, too, by modern machinery requiring noart at all. By this dehydrating process man might be preserved for an eternity, andat the end of that time he could be sent to the Rockefeller Institution, hydrated,and after his drouth has been overcome, he could tell all about what was going onin his time! The modern mummy would be more interesting than the Egyptian mummy,for it could be restored to its pristine shape, which would satisfy one kind of desirefor immortality. But the modern mummy, like the ancient, when dehydrated is deprivedof "the breath of life," an element necessary to complete a living soul,even out of a stalk of celery, and without which it can not impart life to the onewho eats it.

    The one thought necessary to keep uppermost in the mind whenthinking of food is that there are two grand divisions, namely, live food and deadfood. The live foods are all those that come to the table as nature prepares them;dead foods are those that have gone through all kinds of conservation, preservationand mummification.

    Another thought that should associate with the above is thatthe first division of foods carry into man's organism life--these foods impart lifeand power to resist the disintegrating influence of man's environments, such as heat,cold, light, dark, moisture, dryness, etc., etc.

    The dehydrated, preserved and cooked foods are dead; whilethey have the crude elements necessary for man's body renewal, they have lost "thebreath of life"--the elements necessary for tissue perpetuity-those subtileelements that preside over and contribute to the transmutation of the inanimate intothe animate; and when man is fed day after day, year in and year out, on only thosefoods that are dead--meat, bread, and the usual cooked foods--he gradually declinesand takes on the diseases peculiar to premature aging; many die of old age at thirty-five.

    Often the first symptom of physical degeneracy is constipation;hence the need of life-imparting foods, rather than dead laxative foods.

    In the selection of food for the sick, the wise doctor willkeep in mind the real needs of his patients; only the slacker or inefficient willprescribe for symptoms--give attention to symptoms--to the exclusion of cause.

    In all cases of constipation, the first move to make in theline of cure is to restore energy and overcome toxemia. To accomplish the first,where it is possible the patient should be sent to bed. The quickest way to restorelost energy is to rest, and there is but one way to rest, and that is to go to bedand dismiss all company, and reading must be limited to light, humorous stories,and not more than thirty minutes a day to the daily papers. To overcome toxemia,the eating must be confined to fresh uncooked fruits for breakfast, but where fruitdisagrees use a pint to a quart of teakettle tea and nothing else; salad and spinachfor noon, and a pint to a quart of teakettle tea for evening for the first week;the second week a vegetable salad and two cooked vegetables may be eaten at noon;and a little whole-wheat bread with teakettle tea for the evening meal.

    Those who have eaten largely of carbohydrates and are pronouncedlyacid--in a state of acidosis--will experience quite a smash-up within one week afterall stimulating foods are given up. This smash-up is due to the nervousness causedby the withdrawal of stimulating foods. When alcohol, morphine and other drugs havebeen used until an inebriating habit is formed, it is well known to medical men that,if the accustomed stimulant is withdrawn, the victim of the habit suffers great depression;the alcohol inebriate is thrown into delirium tremens. When the food-poisoned areput on a fast, depression with irritation follows in keeping with the degree of toxinpoisoning, and a complete fast may be necessary.

    Within one week after the pronounced toxemic cases are takenoff their regular diet and fasted, great discomfort is felt and the exophthalmicgoiter, the rheumatoid arthritic, the plethoric, the arteriosclerotic and othersbecome very nervous, vomit and suffer other symptoms caused by auto-intoxicationbrought on from rapid elimination. The tongue and mucous membrane of stomach andbowels are dry and often heavily coated. So long as this condition lasts it is meddlesometo do anything more than to give three-minute hot baths once or twice daily; to givethe patient all the water desired to drink, if it does not excite nausea and vomiting;if it does, give no water by mouth, but use half-pint enemas often enough to relievethirst, and apply wet pack to abdomen.

    Many of these patients are distressed with gas at the beginningof the use of fruit, and, encouraged by friends who are quite sure fruit never agreedwith them, they decide that the treatment is not suited to them and on their owninitiative stop eating it. At this point, if the treatment is continued, pronouncedcases of chronic constipation and toxemia, with arthritis, endocarditis, inflammationof the ductless glands, and a sluggish state of all organic functioning, will developgreat nausea, sometimes vomiting; the breath becomes offensive, the tongue loadsup with a foul, massive coating, and the general symptoms may be many and most distressing.At this point the patients and their friends are positive that the treatment is afailure, and, in the days of "auld lang syne," here is where yours trulymet many Waterloos. "A good doctor" would be called and, of course, savetheir lives by ordering "good nourishing food," which would act like magicin placing a lid on the cess-pool--within twenty-four hours most patients will bequite comfortable, their lives having been saved by a hair's breadth.

    Of course, there is no danger of such cases dying, but theyare easy to be made believe that they would have if "the good doctor had notbeen called in the nick-o'-time"--the treatment would have killed them! Manywere sent to an early---premature--grave because of these nick-o'-time cures. Whynot? These food inebriates, like the alcohol, morphine and cocaine inebriates, cannotbe cured without removing the cause. Who would expect a drunkard to be cured by encouraginghim to continue his drinking? Yet my profession has put the air-brakes on many ofmy prospective cures by encouraging the food drunkards to go on stuffing "goodnourishing food." When the saved patients died a few weeks or months afterward,no connection was traced to the erstwhile episode when the supplanting doctor wasendeavoring to procure for the late lamented new leases on life.

    When fruit disagrees, stop the use of it, give teakettletea if there is no nausea, and have the patient's stomach washed out night and morningwith an alkaline lavage,* (*See Appendix.) also give enemas to clear out the bowels.As soon as the patient is comfortable, fruit is to be given again, and if nauseaand gas distention return, stop the fruit, but continue the enemas and lavages.

    So long as there is bad breath and coated tongue, the stomachwashings should be kept up.

4--Exercise a Cure for Constipation

    Activity is life, inactivity is death. An attentive readerof this book must have conceived the truth that constipation is quite generally acombining symptom found in most symptom-complexes of so-called diseases, or, statedin another way: Constipation is one symptom quite generally found in all so-calleddiseases. It should be obvious to reasoning minds that a treatment directed to oneof many symptoms is a very primitive method of attempting to cure disease; infact, only a temporary or palliative relief which must end when the effect passesoff. Indeed, if that were true such practice would not be so bad, but it is a factthat palliation does not end with the relief given, but there must be a graduallygrowing enervation from the effect of each palliation, and a time comes when suchtreatment fails to relieve.

    A logical treatment for overcoming constipation is a treatmentdirected to the removal of all symptoms. Singling out any one or two or more symptomsand treating them is symptom treatment, and in truth is palliation. If the patientreally gets well, he does so in spite of the treatment, not because of it, and theparties to the performance--the doctors and their patients--are no wiser than theywere before. This is the status of the practice of medicine; a sort of a game ofmental blind-fold in which those playing it are seeing, yet see not; hearing, yethear not; thinking, yet think not. Those playing it, however, grow a form of egomaniathat is death to mind growth, and they amount to pawns in the game of life.

    Going back to the beginnings of any departure from a normalstate of health, we find indulgences in mental and physical habits of an enervatingcharacter, and neither least nor last is one that bulks large with all others inmaking up the sum-total of disease, and that is lack of exercise. Any plan of treatmentleaving out adequate exercise must fail of ideal results.

    Inactivity favors stasis. When the bowels are enervated thereis inactivity; the muscular coats of the bowels and blood-vessels become relaxedand fill with blood; passive engorgement takes place; irritation, engorgement, inflammation,ulceration and cancer come in regular order. No treatment that does not look to there-establishment of activity--muscular tone, active circulation with absorption ofdeposits--will cure; hence all habits of life of an enervating character must stop,and exercise must be practiced daily. The tensing movements, particularly of thespine and abdomen, must be practiced when possible every three hours daily. Not spasmodically,but regularly every day.

     Get busy and stay busy. Stop all bad habits; practice positivenessof mind and body; live on the al ert with eyes and mind wide open; do the tensingexercise from one-half to one hour before getting up of a morning; walk, run, jump,get exercise in any way and every way; boycott elevators and streetcars; be sureyou are short for time before taking the automobile, and don't concoct an unworthyexcuse. Take a warm sponge bath, dry the body, then follow with friction mittensafter the morning exercise. Drink a glass or two of cold water on getting up. Sipa quart of half-and-half of hot milk and water for breakfast; at noon two ouncestoasted whole-wheat bread and butter, eat dry, and follow with a quart of hot milkand water; dinner in the evening, two ounces of toasted whole-wheat bread eaten dry,followed with a large combination salad; follow the salad with a pint of milk andwater. Eat in this way until bowels are moving daily, then stop the milk and waterfor breakfast and eat fresh uncooked fruit--one or two apples in winter; in the summerany well-ripened fruit. If the bowels continue to move daily for a week after thischange, add meat to the dinner every other day and stop the toast, milk andwater. This change should continue for a week, and if the bowels continue to movedaily, then increase the toast to three or four ounces; no other change for the starchdinners. No butter is to be used on the toast when oil is used in the salad. Positivelyno water drinking nor eating between meals. Play the game fair!

    Follow in this line for a month after all the changes havebeen made, then if all is going nicely, the noon and night meals may be selectedfrom the "Pocket Dietitian."

    If in the beginning of this treatment the bowels are obstinate,place half a pint or one pint of warm water in the rectum, holding the water fora few minutes (ten or fifteen minutes); then try to have a movement--no severe straining.This small enema may be used every night following every day that the bowels do notmove. Don't be disappointed when the bowels fail to respond to the small enema; therewill be another day, and so long as the sun continues to shine the vilest bowelsmay return to the normal. Don't tie the bowels up into double-bow knots by worrying.Constipation is not built in a day, week, or month; it can be corrected in a reasonabletime by following the advice intelligently. As a result of this treatment the bowelswill move daily, and physical and mental efficiency will increase until the erstwhileconstipated individual would not sell out for a million.

EXERCISES AS USED AT THE TILDEN HEALTH SCHOOL

    Tense the leg muscles from the toes to the body. First extendthe toes as far as you can,

    and then grip, as it were, by forcing the toes toward theheels, and at the same time make the muscles of the legs hard to the body; then relaxand tense again. Alternate these movements, keeping count of the number of times,so as to know how much exercise you take each time. Do this five times each way,and then relax and rest.

    Next tense the hands and arms in the same way. Extend thefingers as far as you can, making the muscles hard to the shoulders; then grip thefingers and shut the fist, hardening the muscles to the shoulders. Do this five timeseach way; then back to the feet and legs; then back to the arms again.

    Then fold a pillow and put it under the shoulders, so thatwhen the head drops back it will not touch anything. Then lift the head forward,placing the chin on the chest; then let the head go back again as far as it will,then lift. Do this as often as you can. Then, with pillow still under the shoulders,lock the fingers under head, allowing head to rest in hands. Swing head from sideto side, up and down, and rotate, carrying each movement as far as possible.

    Then push folded pillow down under hips and go through theleg movements of riding a bicycle. Then, with legs extended in the air, move eachleg from side to side, allowing one to pass the other over the body.

    Then tense the abdomen, making it as hard as possible, andat the same time knead the abdomen with the hands.

    Then sit up and turn the face to the right as far as possible;then to the left as far as possible; then allow the head to drop over, so as to bringthe ear close to the shoulder, and then carry it over to the opposite shoulder. Repeatin this manner as long as possible.

    These movements of the head and neck are necessary to removedeposits that take place between the vertebrae, and in grooves and opening in boneswhere the nerves and arteries pass. If the hearing is bad, these movements will improveit. If the sense of smell is not so acute as it should be, by keeping up the exercisesthe olfactory nerve will be freed and the smell will be more acute. The taste, too,will be bettered. All the nerves of special sense will be invigorated. The pneumogastricnerve and all the vital nerves controlling vital organs are invigorated by this exercise.When nerves are pressed upon by organic deposits, the movements above described willcause the deposits to be absorbed. The muscles of the neck will develop; the musclesof the face will develop; one will grow to look and feel younger.

    These exercises must be gone through with, not only beforegetting up, but every three or four hours during the day. You may think that thisis very laborious, but it is the price you must pay to get well. So begin at once,and be faithful.

    There are a few more exercises which I will describe. Siton the edge of bed and sway the body from side to side as far as you can; then followwith a twisting movement, attempting to look behind over the shoulders. Sit up inbed and sway backward and forward, compelling the spine to bend from the small ofthe back up to the head, forward and backward. This loosens up the spine and invigoratesthe nerves that are sent off to the lower part of the body.

    Get on the knees and elbows; then push the body forward asfar as possible without falling upon the face; then push back as far as possible.Go back and forth, while in this position, until tired; then drop on either the leftor the right shoulder while the hips are highly elevated. This is called the knee-shoulderposition. The knee and elbow position, with the movements described, I call the "Irishmail movements." It is necessary to practice both these movements and positionsin overcoming constipation, prolapsus of the bowels, rectum, or womb, and piles.

    Place the forefingers over the closed eyes and rub gentlyfrom side to side. Then remove fingers and rotate eyeballs, reversing the movementto relieve the tire. Place forefingers on wings of nose; press together and movefrom side to side.

    When the weather is nice, you are to take a walk in the openair as often as possible.

5--The Water Cure in Constipation

    We hear such remarks as: Water is the natural solvent andshould be used abundantly--impossible to use it too much; that our bodies are three-fourthswater and our brains nine-tenths water; hence unless large quantities are used direconsequences will result.

    To water drinking there is a limit, the same as to breadand meat eating. Some doctors tell us that bread is the staff of life, and then theyproceed to calcify, ossify and petrify everyone who will come unto them and taketheir advice; even the advocates of the staff of life theory mentally petrify andremain, as Lot's wife, pillars of salt--proving the staying qualities of the food.On the other hand we have the advocates of meat, and they prove by the health ofthe buzzard, hyena and cannibal that meat eating is an open sesame to brainand brawn. Diet is the most talked about and most abused subject in the people'sforum today. Specializing in diet ranges from: "there isn't anything in thefood question," to: "eat what agrees with you;" from sipping milkevery half-hour to corn-beef and cabbage; from cereals to meat; from fruit and nuts,and other forms of vegetarianism, to omnivorous stuffing; all of which shows thatknowledge of the subject is chaotic, and proves that there is everywhere to be seen,by those with discernment, the palpable truth that it takes more than fanaticism,prejudice and a knowledge of the stoking value of foods to make a dietetic physician.

    At the beginning of crystallization of ideas on any of theestablished systems chaos reigns. Truth and fallacy indulge in an orgy that endsonly at the triumph of truth--at the triumph of order. Diet, as a subject, is ina drunken revel today, and those who know the least talk most for or against thesubject. Small minds put a little salt on the tail of a diet idea and rush into print,and establish a following of fanatics who resist truth and stay progress for a time.But, in spite of all hindrances, truth on the subject is growing apace.

    Diet, the subject of curing disease by properly adjustingman to his intake of food, and other habits both mental and physical, is so loadeddown by fallacy that the untrained mind that goes to the Mother Hubbard Diet Cupboardwill find it bare except for a bone.

    Water drinking to overcome constipation is one of hundredsof cure-alls that have been worked overtime.

    Those with the hydrocephalic idea can not conceive the factthat man is not an aquatic animal, and that his supply of water is prepared for himand handed to him in the form of luscious fruits and succulent vegetables and milk.Man will not understand that the earth was prepared for his coming. Rock, vegetable,animal, then man, is the way the story runs. Man last because he cannot make fleshfrom rock and water, but he can utilize rock and water that are prepared for himin the form of fruit, vegetables and meat. But the hydro-idealist is not satisfiedwith the spread nature sets before him; he proceeds to break up the compounds naturehas given him by boiling or cooking the vegetables and fruit, which destroys thesolvent enzymes, evaporates the rich volatile oils and aromas, and the sun-kissed(distilled) waters are made to throw down their organized minerals; and when thelife is gone out, and the vegetable cells are dead, then simple man adds as dressingbutter, flour, etc., most of which are soulless from the mechanistic manipulationsthey have gone through before they are added to the vegetable and fruit.

    This distorted food is eaten with toasted bread which hasbeen forced through so many manipulations that its relationship to grain is muchthe same as the mummy's body is to the man it is supposed to represent. Or, if meatbe used, the water element, along with the salts and volatile oils, the soul of man'sfood, is driven out, and it returns to nature (God) who gave it, and man then proceedsto eat what is left. It is a case of the dead burying the dead. Constipation followsas surely as effect must follow cause. Why? Because the vital elements are devitalized--drivenout; life is robbed of its food, of the elements of its renewal; and when the victimof such starvation gives down to an epidemic influencewhen struck down by "flu"or pneumonia or some other disease--death will be his portion unless medical treatmentis much above average.

    After devitalized food is eaten for some time, the body becomesenervated, for the life of the food is destroyed in cooking, and man's stock of nerveenergy is expended in assimilating and imparting life to the intake, without beingable to collect toll; hence enervation must follow, and the disease once called scurvy,but now acidosis is developed. When man eats vitalized food (fresh fruit and vegetables)he will get all the energies used in digesting and assimilating it paid back by theenergy contained in the food, and if these finer energies--enzymes, so-called vitamines,life itself-- are not forthcoming in the food eaten, physical and mental bankruptcymust be the legitimate consequences.

    The water that is drunk to replace the water that is drivenout of food and destroyed by evaporation and the destructive analysis of cookingis a poor substitute. The destroyed water is the water of crystallization, and tissuehistogenesis--tissue synthesis--the water of organized vegetable and animal bodies.

    The mineral water and the mineral of our mountains are waterand bread in potentiality, but the Great Artificer must send both through nature'slaboratory before they are refined enough to be ideal food and drink for man.

    When we eat bread the water original to the cereal is gone,and before the bread can become tissue it must be supplied with the loss sustainedin milling and cooking. If we eat whole grain, water must be added. Ordinary mineralwater is used, but a very much better plan is to eat bread with fresh uncooked fruit,or vegetable salads (the Tilden Salad is meant); in doing so we give to our bodiesorganic water similar to that destroyed in drying, milling and cooking our foods.Thirst always follows a hearty meal of solid devitalized foods--namely, bread, meat,beans, potatoes, puddings, pies, etc.--because the water of construction--histogenesis--hasbeen driven out.

    Distilled water is dead, and the waters of our springs, wellsand hydrants are inorganic and mineralized, and as man can not digest rock as rock,the same bar holds good with the mineral in water. The juice of fruits and vegetablesis water organized, and the unifying element, so far as we know, is life; this substance,or element, passes into the body of man, and replenishes his stock, commerciallyspeaking, of life.

     Mineralized water, when fresh from its source, is potentizedwith life, and, like air, can be made a carrier of impurities; it imparts life
while it takes into the body unutilizable debris. When it is distilled, boiled, bottledor confined, its life potency disappears; then it is not potable. At best mineralizedwater taxes the body to rid itself of the mineral. The kidneys labor to rid the bodyof mineralized water, and constipation results. Air when confined loses its lifepotency. Like water, however, its synthetical elements are not disturbed in theirproportions. Both water and air can be surcharged with foreign matter to such anextent that they are rendered unfit for man's use, yet their legitimate elementsexcept life are not disturbed in quantity nor quality. Both may carry a degree ofcold and heat that unfits them for man's use, and both may be devoid of life-impartingpower, yet on analysis they may be perfect in composition. Life eludes the analyst,yet he may learn to place elements -analyzed or synthesized--in such an environmentas to attract life. This is a therapeutic possibility that receives very little,if any, attention by the majority of health teachers, notwithstanding life is omnipresent;and why shan't I say that it is the essence--the noumenon--the thing itself--theunknowable?

    Thirst is a desire no more to be harkened to, without reason,than is appetite, passion, or any other want of the body or mind. The unspoiled worldof instinct, which must give way to ratiocination (reasoning) when mind becomes ourguide, is a safe pilot, but when instinct is befuddled by luxury, as it is in a commercializedworld, we see human animals surrounded by luxury entirely out of keeping with theirphysiological needs, and as a result they suffer from abusing the chemistry of thebody by supplying artificially created wants and anticipated privileges. For an exaggeratedsimile, think of "a bull in a china shop."

    People in the instinct (animal) class, yet masquerading asratiocinate (thinking) beings, when restricted in any way, can be known by such outbreaksas: "What is food for if not to eat? What is water, alcohol, coffee, tea, tobaccoand other stimulants for if not to be used? Why should one not eat when there isa desire? Why not indulge all wants? Why are these wants given to man if they arenot to be satisfied?" These questions may be extended to the lowest type ofcriminal life: "Why should I not kill, rob, outrage and take advantage of societyin any way I can? I have a desire to do so, and if it were not right for me to doso, the desire would not have been planted in my nature."

    The same questions may be extended to governments. If Godhad not desired the Kaiser to massacre the world, why did He give him the desire?I leave the reader to apply the question to all forms of parties, cliques, societiesand abused privileges, which are now busy howling their God-given rights across thechasm that separates instinct from reason.

    Take a glimpse with me at the priests of the various professionswhich are supposed to place deluded humanity in the proper attitude toward the lawsof instinct and reason. Isn't it to laugh at their teachings, if the results werenot so tragic? Nature is as well satisfied with the results of law worked out inone way as in another; man can travel in reverse so long as he likes. If there isa "Master of the Show" he certainly must be splitting his sides guffawingat the monstrous farce--comedy he is pulling off on the world-stage.

    As a health adviser I am forced to spend most of my timeendeavoring to teach self-control in those who are satisfying their appetites andpassions on a reasoning basis, while their mentalities--understandings--are stillin the instinct class. When criticized they attempt to vindicate their crimes againsttheir natures by such reasoning as before mentioned, namely: What's desire, etc.,for, if not to satisfy? The burglar, or any criminal, inebriate, or drug fiend, canask the same question.

    There are very intelligent people who can not understandthat the privilege of eating, drinking and enjoying ad libitum belongs toinstinct and a natural world--belongs to an aboriginal people in an aboriginal world;and that their world requires the guiding influence of knowledge and judgment tosteer the ratiocinate--the thinking--through ' their maze of temptation born of acommercialized civilization.

    Luxury with only an instinct to guide ends as we see it,namely, in hospitals, sanitariums, insane asylums, benevolent institutions, criminalinstitutions galore, and a world of disease on the outside of these institutions.

    When man is guided by instinct only, he requires no fig leafof prohibition; but when he eats of the tree of knowledge his mental eyes are opened,and then, unless he acts the part of a rational being, he will surely die. Man eatsof the tree of knowledge and assumes self-control; he then repudiates instinct; bysensuality he grieves away the holy spirit--instinct--and at the same time refusesto be guided by reason. Society today is pleasure-mad, and its health teachers declare:If you worship us you may enjoy to the full all pleasures of life; don't be a fool;be operated on; then eat and drink, for tomorrow you will not die. And the peoplefall for these modern devils.

    It is within the mental grasp of any rational being to behis own physician, and enjoy within his requirements; but when his privileges areabused he loses his self- protection, and in that day he is doomed, and he must surelydie.

    I am reminded daily that "water is God's gift to man(and so is bread), and man should satisfy his desire for it." The same reasoningjustifies soaking one's life out bathing, or drowning, if the desire is for doingso. If a desire is natural it should be satisfied, but when artificially created,to satisfy it then even by water drinking becomes a link in a chain of morbid habitsand leads to disease and physical degeneracy. How is one to know? That is the doctor'sbusiness, in the absence of lay education and training; but as "doctoring"is a system of palliation, the average doctor knows no more about the evils of eatingand drinking than the average layman, and when asked to prescribe a diet, he usuallysays: "Eat and drink whatever agrees with you." The prescription is absurd,and shows gross ignorance on the part of the doctor and a childish credulity on thepart of the patient for not flouting the prescription back in the quack'sface. Why should the patient consult the doctor if he knows what to do-what to eatand drink and wear?

SYMPTOMS INDICATING A DROUTHY STATE OF THE BODY

    In constipation, where the feces are dry and scanty, thekidneys inactive and urine reduced to a pint in twenty-four hours--a little moreor a little less--and high-colored, skin dry and shedding the scurf skin to suchan extent as to give black socks and underwear a dusty or dirt-covered appearance,there is present, in most of such cases, an aversion to water; they are nervous,irritable and have a pinched or drawn facial expression. Such patients live in ahigh, state of tension; they never relax, know nothing of poise; suff er from headache,neuralgia, nervous discomforts in stomach and bowels, an all-gone feeling in stomachor bowels, a gnawing or grinding which may be relieved by eating, but certainly notcured! Many complain of a pulsating tumor near the umbilicus, which is the pulsatingof the abdominal aorta and is natural, but too pronounced when people are nervous.The tongue is coated of a morning and the breath disagreeable; the breath odor maylast all day, or pass away after the first meal. Where meat and eggs are eaten dailythe bad breath may last all day. The pulse may be too rapid (from 80 to 100), theheart may palpitate under anger, fear, or on going up a flight of stairs. After thirty-fiveyears of age, and even before, there may be a beginning of hardening of arteries.Gas in the stomach and bowels is a constant symptom, sometimes very distressing;catarrhal deafness and ringing or noises in the head are very common symptoms. Asthmaand bronchitis are quite common accompaniments to the foregoing symptom-complex.Those presenting these symptoms are usually bread or toast and coffee and tobaccofiends, and certainly non-consumers of water in the natural state of fresh uncookedfruits and vegetables. Fruit often distresses these cases because of the gastricneuroses brought on from the acid of starch fermentation induced by eating breadand coffee together. Coffee is inclined to cause irritation and acidity--build aneurosis--of the stomach, and in those predisposed to take on cancer it hurries thedevelopment of that disease. Caffeine is a toxin, and when drunk daily favors arteriosclerosisand cancer.

    Cases presenting many, or only a few, of the above symptomsshould be encouraged to drink water very freely except after the hearty meals--afterdinner. No fluid of any kind should be taken into the stomach after leaving the table,it matters not how urgent the demand, for if water is drunk, fermentation will beinduced and ruin the digestion of that meal and cause acidity--sour stomach.

    To persist in drinking water while digestion is on establishespolyuria in some and obesity in others. Obesity means retention of water in the tissuesof the body.

WHEN TO DRINK WATER FOR CONSTIPATION

    When the skin is dry and urine scanty and high-colored; whenthe tongue is coated or dry; when there is much nervousness, headache or discomfort,and when the pulse is small, wiry and resistant to light pressure, patients presentingmost of these symptoms should stay in bed two weeks, should be given an enema (twoquarts of warm water) daily, a stomach lavage every morning, and fast until tonguecleans and comfort returns. When ready for food give fruit for breakfast, salad atnoon, buttermilk for supper. They should sip slowly a glass of cold or warm waterof a morning and half an hour before each meal. In addition to the three pints ofwater, a cup or two of teakettle tea at the end of each meal. These patients arenervous and inclined to irritability, and when possible should stay in bed and fastfrom two to four weeks. Acids do not agree with them; they complain that fruit disagreeswith them; that the fruit causes them to have pain in their stomach or bowels. Theymust fast until comfortable. When comfortable, eat as directed above. All cases presentingthese symptoms have catarrh of the stomach; where the catarrh has extended to colon(colitis) starch must be avoided until much better, eaten in great moderation everafter. Constipation with colitis must be overcome by withholding or restricting starcheating to one meal each day. Until the bowels are regular, breakfasts should be confinedto fruit or a pint of teakettle tea; or those who eat starch should eat the coarsebread--whole-wheat, rye or bran bread--or porridges, but in very great moderation--anounce or two at the beginning; eat dry, very little butter, masticating thoroughlyand follow with teakettle tea. Lunch: fresh fruit, berries in season, with an ounceof raisins if they do not cause acidity and discomfort. Many can not eat the sweetdried fruits. Follow with teakettle tea. When better, as much fresh fruit as desired.Those with rheumatism must avoid eating fruit, milk and starch in the same meal;bread and teakettle tea may be eaten with lettuce. Dinners should be meat and starchon alternate days. On meat days, preferably lamb, chicken, fish or eggs, with twosucculent vegetables--spinach or onions--as often as possible to take with a relish,and every dinner a combination salad--a Tilden salad. For starch dinners select onedecidedly starchy food* and eat with two succulent or non-starchy vegetables* anda combination salad. (*See Appendix.)

HIGH BLOOD-PRESSURE

    Where there is great enervation, rapid pulse, or a pulsebelow sixty, the patient should give up work and stay in bed until much improved.In cases of high blood-pressure--full, hard pulse--the patient should stay in beduntil comfortable, and eating must be confined to fruit for breakfast, salad at noonand buttermilk for supper; positively no water or any other table beverage untilthe pressure is brought to normal.

WHEN NOT TO DRINK WATER OR ANY OTHER FLUID FOR CONSTIPATION

    Never drink when the digestive process is on. When thereis high blood-pressure; when there is flushed face and pain or discomfort; when theskin is moist, or the patient perspires without effort or exercise; when there isptyalism (excessive flow of saliva) or heavy bronchial secretion with asthma, orpolyuria (excessive flow of urine), a fast is necessary; no water without thirst,and then very little. When these symptoms are better, drinking at or between mealsmust not be allowed until bowel secretions have become established and constipationovercome; then at early morning and at meal time only. To drink water after digestionof a hearty meal has begun is positively disease-building. Constipation with uncomfortablefeeling in the head, or dizziness, momentary blindness, or any recurring eye sensations,or ear sounds or noises that have come on recently, or with any disagreeable heador eye symptoms--a patient presenting these symptoms, if in full flesh or disposedto obesity (fatness), should fast; the fast should be broken if nausea develops,or as soon as any unusual discomfort appears; an orange for morning and noon, anda salad for night. Those in medium flesh should be allowed fruit for breakfast, saladfor noon, buttermilk for supper. Those who are starch-poisoned will have an irritablestomach, and fruit disagrees with them; thin patients when comfortable should havea pint to a quart of teakettle tea for breakfast, fresh fruit, one ounce of raisinsand teakettle tea for noon, and combination salad and milk for supper. A pint ofwater, cold or hot, every morning, sipping slowly. If constipation returns, a pintenema of warm water every evening or every other evening, retained for a few minutes,may be all that is necessary; if, however, this fails, give a quart of 50-50* forbreakfast and lunch; salad, whole-wheat bread toasted, and a pint of 50-50 for dinner.(*See Appendix.)

FREQUENT URINATION, OR POLYURIA

    Where there is an excess of urine and constipation, stopwater drinking entirely until bowels are regular; then depend on fresh fruits, vegetables,salads and milk (at meal time only) for a supply of fluid to the system. Thirst,like appetite, is abnormal and can be overcome; after which health--normality--returnsand will be permanent and dependable.

6--Laxatives as a Cure for Constipation

    Laxatives are of two classes, namely, foods and drugs.

    Food Laxatives: It should be known at the beginningof a formulation of natural remedies for constipation that Food--all food--islaxative, and when it is not, the natural functions of the bowels, secretions andexcretions, are perverted. This being true, our first thought in overcoming constipationshould be to correct the habits of life that are enervating, and prescribe a mannerof eating and care of body that will conserve energy and build back lost functioning.While looking after the general health which is necessary to accomplish this purpose,it is also necessary to palliate the constipation in those who are of a nervous temperamentand under weight. This secures a daily movement with the least harmful of all theartificial helps necessary to use for the purpose. It is safe to say that anythingand everything that is used to cause--force--the bowels to move does more or lessharm, but we often have to decide between two evils, namely, the harmful effectsof constipation and the remedy used to secure relief. Even the laxative fruits domore or less harm, and the careful and discerning physician is often compelled tostop their use because of their tendency to ferment in the stomach.

    Where fruit can be used without fermentation and gas distention,prunes* or black figs* may be used for breakfast, followed with a quart of teakettletea. For lunch, two or three ounces of coarse bread toasted, followed with a quartof teakettle tea. For dinner, meat, spinach and combination salad. If the dry fruitcan not be used, try a little fresh fruit, or one or two ounces of toasted bread.(*See Appendix.)

    The best and most logical treatment is to correct all mentaland physical bad habits, and then eat little enough to allow the system to returnto the normal.

    Laxative foods, laxative drugs, mineral waters, cathartics,the various oils, etc., do not cure, can not cure; possibly in the young andvigorous constipation may apparently be overcome by laxative foods, spring water,etc., but the sluggishness for which they were given is temporary and would havepassed without any treatment, simply being an accumulation from neglect. There isnothing, logically speaking, in the so-called remedies, which are used to move thebowels, that will restore secretions and excretions; a necessary accomplishmentand without which normal secretions and excretions, with daily evacuations, can notbe had. Not only the enervation of the bowels must be restored, but systemic enervationas well, for primarily enervation is general, ending in toxemia, after which theorgan with least resistance, or subjected to the greatest stress, gives down first.The stomach and bowels are greatly stressed and suffer most.

    Drug Laxatives: Compelling the bowels to move doesnot necessarily force secretions; indeed, secretions sidestep (so to speak) the catharticinfluence. A laxative influence is the primary cathartic influence. A dose of salts,spring waters or the dehydrated mineral, acts mechanically through the lawof osmosis, drawing the water (or serum) from the blood into the bowels, causinglarge watery stools. If enough of the salts is taken the bowels will be cleared out,but constipation proper is not corrected by it. Besides the bowels being clearedout, the blood has been depleted; but have the secretions and excretions of the bowelsbeen established? Not at all! Thirst follows the action of salts, for there is ademand for the restoration to the blood of its unnatural loss. As proof that thedehydration works a hardship to the blood, see the mouth and tongue; they are leftdry, and there is a thirst that water-drinking fails to relieve immediately. Insteadof laxatives establishing secretions, the function is further removed from the normalby the bowel-forcing treatment, notwithstanding relief to bowel accumulation is experienced.When the body is uncomfortable from the toxemia of constipation, if the clearingof the bowels be very thorough, the discomfort will be relieved, and rest in bed,poised mind, fasting and warm sponge baths will restore secretion and excretion;then by eating moderately of properly combined menus, and exercising all that isnecessary for health, a cure will be established. At no time can the mental statebe forgotten; a happy and optimistic mind is positively necessary.

    It is necessary to clear out the bowels at the beginningof all so-called diseases, but there is a best way, and I shall attempt to pointthat way.

    It is a mistake, which is liable to end fatally, to beginthe treatment of typhoid fever with anything to move the bowels except daily enemas.Why? Because this fever starts with putrescence in the small intestine, and a catharticforces infection of adenoid tissue and lymph follicles. The exanthematous (eruptive)fevers, smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, et alii, are complicated and madesevere by any drugs, strong or mild, that are given to move the bowels. They tendto retrocede the eruption to the intestine, favoring infective toxemia.

    As it is almost impossible to diagnose satellitic exanthemata,rather than complicate an obscure case by laying the foundation for inflammationand ulceration in the intestine by the use of bowel stimulants, physicians shouldabandon a routine of physic and adopt a safe course, namely, use enemas and stopfeeding. When this is done the building of infectious fevers or chronic diseaseswill end. This precaution would have saved thousands in the late "flu"epidemic--in all epidemics.

    To make the above clear, I will say that in epidemics ofscarlet fever and diphtheria there are fifteen to twenty attacked with angina simplexto every one who develops a pronounced or septic type--only one in fifteen to twentycases matures toxic bacteria. Why? Because the subjects are not toxemically vulnerable;that is, their bodies do not offer a welcome hostage for bacteria. For bacteria totake on toxicity and specificity, the subject must furnish a favorable habitat. Inother words, there must be pronounced enervation and toxemia with denudation of mucoussurfaces.

    Chronic Constipation: Drugs given to force eliminationin chronic so-called disease frustrate the real purpose for which they are given,namely, to establish secretion and excretion. It is true if the bowels are clearedout more absorption of decomposition from them will be prevented if the patient isfasted, but auto-intoxication, from checked and retained excretions, will continueuntil complete elimination is brought about by physiological, physical and mentalrest--fasting, staying in bed, and the dismissal of worries, fears and enervatinghabits generally.

    Rest need not be absolute except while there is much discomfort,pronounced elimination, nausea or vomiting. When comfortable, the patient may berested from the bed for an hour or two each day, sitting in a chair, or if the dayis fine he may sit in the sunshine and open air.

    Fresh uncooked fruit may be eaten in moderation three timesa day. If, however, fruit sets up erythema or hives, buttermilk may be substituted.As improvement continues, more food may be eaten. A pint or more of hot teakettletea may give more and quicker relief, by invigorating the circulation.

    In emergencies, such as obstructing constipation, a choicebetween evils may have to be made; high enemas or quick-acting drugs may have tobe selected, but certainly they should be discontinued when the object for whichthey' are given is attained. Heroic remedies should not be given until hotwet packs or stupes have been given a trial.
Atonic and Spastic Constipation

    The difference between atonic and spastic constipation maybe explained as follows:

    Atonic Constipation is common; in fact, most constipationsare of this order. Sluggishness of the bowels may exist for some time without causingappearances of ill health; perhaps there may be a heavy head or headache, and a lackof energy, without the cause being known. Flatulency and gas distention may causesome discomfort; laxative foods and enemas are effective for relieving. In commonconstipation there is no excess of mucus; rectum is often full; the sigmoid flexureand the transverse colon are inclined to be full.

    Treatment: Large enemas twice a day until bowels arecleared out, then small enemas every night. Stay in bed for two weeks or longer.Practice the tensing exercise every three hours, as long each time as possible; increasethe amount taken as fast as strength increases. When out of bed add walking and otherforms of exercise. Get busy, stay busy, and take the M. D. P. Recovery will be slow;but a cure will be speeded up by lots of exercise. Keep the mind and body poised.

    Spastic Constipation: The spastic or distorted bowelis caused by drawing or spasm, and is not very common; when present, it may havea neurosis or lead-poisoning history; always gastro-intestinal catarrh, or pronouncedcolitis with ulceration. The leading symptoms are pain, and mucus in the stools.Pain may be slight or very severe. Some authorities declare that pain belongs tospastic constipation. My experience does not quite agree. Pain is always found incatarrh of any portion of the intestinal canal, and the reason for it is that starchis not well digested and requires so much time that fermentation takes place, causingdistention. Distention or inflation with gas is the cause of great discomfort. Wherethe gas is confined to a given locality by spasm or contraction, the pain is oftenvery great, driving the surgeon more anxious for fees than cures to remove the appendix,ovary, womb, gall-bladder, resect a part of the colon, or remove something, anything.No cure can follow, but that does not matter; the operation was skilfully and successfullyperformed. Such operations are on the order of daylight bank robberies, except thatthe intimidation is by a threat that the disease will kill, instead of a gun-play;the latter may be a little more honorable and without detrimental after-affects.

    Drugs or anything to force a movement must be much more powerfulthan is common for atonic constipation and much more painful. Many place diagnosticsignificance in the shapes of fecal matter as expelled, which is said to be pencil-or ribbon-like. Certainly such shapes must be made by the outlet--the anus; for apeculiar shape formed above must be changed at the outlet. In palpating, the colonfeels hard, cord-like and about the size of the little finger, and sensitive. Themost pronounced symptom is long, stringy, membraneous stools.

    Treatment: So far as curing this type of constipationis concerned, it depends on whether the patient will co-operate. It takes time andpatience. A stay in bed for months is necessary, with poise of mind and body. Reliefmay be given these patients by teaching them to eat within their digestive limitsof the stomach and upper bowels. Foods that require several hours to digest are passedon to the colon, where digestion has ceased because of disease, and decompositionis ever present. These are not diseases to be corrected by laxative foods and drugs.Enemas high or low when necessary are the only forcing measures that should everbe employed to secure an evacuation; all others increase the disease. Very rarelymineral-spring water enough to bring relief when the enemas fail; the water fromthe spring, not the concentrates.

    Meat, eggs, fish and dairy products may be used, but neverin conjunction with starch. Starchy foods should not be eaten. Ripe fruit isalways admissible. Unripe fruit causes gas distention and pain. Gruel made of anyof the cereals and strained, removing bran, hull or rough particles, may be used,if pain does not follow; if pain follows, the starch is not digested and it shouldnot be given. Meat should not be swallowed in chunks. Lamb, chicken, fish or eggswith vegetable salad, dressed with sugar and salt, no oil, for dinner. Milk and water,fifty-fifty, for the other two meals.

    Those with this form of constipation are made very miserableby eating foods rich in cellulose; indeed, this element in fruit and vegetables mustbe removed. In severe types of this disease cooked vegetables are not to be used.

    Rough foods usually given to overcome ordinary constipationmake patients with colitis, especially the spastic type, most miserable.

    For breakfast, a cup or two of gruel (when it can be takenwithout pain following), seasoned with salt and very little butter. It is to be takenhot and thin enough to sip slowly; or

    one or two eggs beaten with strained orange or grapefruitjuice, enough to make a cup of the mixture; or two glasses of hot milk and water,equal parts. These foods are to be taken very slowly. In severe cases hot milk andwater up to one quart, twice a day; and for dinner, meat and salad. When much betterthe dinner may be lean meats broiled or cooked en casserole; a puree of tomato, spinach,celery, asparagus, or cabbage; -and a combination salad run through a vegetable millor cut very fine; and then the patient must masticate and insalivate well.

    Suppers should be the same as breakfast. Milk and water isa safe meal.

    Tensing exercise should be practiced daily as much as possible.

    All very sick people should attend the Tilden Health Schoollong enough to be educated into knowing how to take proper care of themselves.