LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
CONSTIPATION, 
 
 PLAINLY TREATED. 
 
BRIGHT'S DISEASE. How Persons Threatened or Afflicted 
 
 with this Disease Ought to Live. By J. F. Edwards, m.d. l6mo, 96 
 
 pages. Cloth. Price 75 cents. 
 
 The author Rives, in a readable manner, those instructions in relation 
 
 to Hygiene, Clothing, Eating, Bathing, etc., etc., which, when carried out, 
 
 will prolong the life of those suffering from this disease, and a neglect of 
 
 which costs annually many li^es. 
 
 WHAT IS SAID OTf IT. 
 
 44 Every one should read this excellent little volume, in which Dr. Ed- 
 wards describes and defines the disease. "—Providence Journal. 
 
 " This little book is prepared, not in the interest Of the doctor, but of the 
 sufferer." — Louisville Christian Observer. 
 
 44 A very valuable work."— New York Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 " Plainly written, and ought to be of great use." — Philadelphia Public 
 Ledger. 
 
 44 What should be done and avoided are clearly shown, and the informa- 
 tion communicated is of general interest."— Albany Journal. 
 
 " Plain and straightforward."— Baltimore Sun. 
 
 u An admirable and much needed book." — Catholic Mirror, Baltimore. 
 
 " A remarkably able and useful treatise upon an obscure and vital sub- 
 ject."— North American. 
 ■ " Should be read carefully by every one."— The Voice, Albany, N. Y. 
 
 "It encourages the sufferer as well as instructs him." — Congregationalist . 
 
 14 An intelligent work."— Toledo Blade. 
 
 " A clear statement of some of the rules of life, which will insure the 
 longest lease of life, and the greatest measure of health."— Providence 
 Press. 
 
 44 A satisfactory treatise."— Indianapolis Sentinel. 
 
 "Of especial interest and importance, and should be universally known." 
 -•^Lutheran Observer. 
 
 44 Will be eagerly welcomed by thousands of people. The malady is one 
 of a peculiarly insidious character, and it may be asserted with confidence 
 that this book will be a very valuable one for medical men as well as lay- 
 men. The book is written in good, plain English, and with clearness."— 
 StoddarVs Review. 
 
 "Simple, practical directions that can be easily obeyed."— Bookseller 
 and Stationer. 
 
 " We are glad to call attention to this volume." — Southern Churchman. 
 
 "The considerations presented in this little volume are of the greatest 
 moment."— N. E. Journal of Education. 
 
 " This volume is especially commended to those in whose behalf it is 
 written." — Chicago Evening Journal. 
 
 "Contains a deal of useful information." — Rural New Yorker. 
 
 4 Physicians, as well as laymen, will find the work interesting, and will 
 obtain many valuable hints as to the proper hygiene to be observed in this 
 disease."— Medical News, Cincinnati. 
 
 44 To those for whom it is designed, this manual can hardly fail to be a 
 God-send."— Buffalo Courier. 
 
CONSTIPATION, 
 
 PLAINLY TREATED, 
 
 AND 
 
 RELIEVED WITHOUT THE USE OF DRUGS. 
 
 V BY 
 
 JOSEPH F. EDWARDS, M.D., 
 
 Author of " How a Person Threatened or Afflicted with Bright's Disease 
 Ouyht to Live." 
 
 r$ .. . / 
 ><W 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PRESLEY BLAKISTON, 
 
 IOI2 WALNUT STREET. 
 I88l. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by 
 
 PRESLEY BLAKISTON, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
 Press of WM. P. FELL & CO., 
 
 1220-1224 Sansom Street, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introductory 9 
 
 Part I. — The Functions of the Stomach and 
 
 Bowels 15 
 
 Part II. — Necessity for Daily Evacuations 23 
 
 Part III. — How to Procure Daily Evacua- 
 tions Without the Use of Drugs 36 
 
CONSTIPATION, 
 
 PLAINLY TREATED. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 " How are your bowels; are they regular?" 
 " Oh, yes, Doctor, they are pretty fair." " Are 
 they opened daily ? ' ' " Oh, no ! ' ' " How often 
 are they moved ? " " Well, sometimes every two 
 or three days, and sometimes not for a week. ' ' 
 The foregoing conversation, which I venture to 
 say has repeatedly taken place between every phy- 
 sician in active practice and many of his patients, 
 is the author's excuse for giving the following 
 pages to the public. 
 
 It is astonishing, and I may say, incomprehen- 
 sible, but nevertheless it is a dismal fact, that 
 even among intelligent persons, little or no at- 
 tention is paid to this all important matter of 
 regular and free evacuations from the bowels. I 
 
 recall to mind one striking case of an exceedingly 
 b 9 
 
10 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 intelligent lady of sixty, who told me that she 
 had never, throughout her long life, given a second 
 thought to her bowels ; when she' had the inclina- 
 tion to have them moved, she generally, but not 
 always, would seek the water closet' 5 if the desire 
 did not manifest itself, well, no matter, she did 
 not care ; and sometimes, she told me, a week or 
 more would elapse without one single evacuation. 
 This is not an isolated case. I venture to say, 
 without fear of contradiction, that there are more 
 persons in the world who are costive (generally 
 through their own fault, or, at least, through 
 want of information on the subject), by a large 
 majority, than are regular. I have now under my 
 care a woman who tells me that she frequently 
 passes three weeks without a single evacuation. 
 I set myself to work to induce regular daily pas- 
 sages, and, although well advanced in years, with 
 her stomach and liver much disordered from this 
 costive habit, the improvement in her appearance 
 and in her general health has been marvelous. 
 The Hon. Eli K. Price once told me of a gentle- 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 11 
 
 man, eighty years of age, who, possessed of an 
 elegant constitution, seemed to bid fair to become 
 a centenarian, but who, in course of conversation, 
 said that his only trouble was that his bowels 
 were not regular. Why do you not make them 
 so, asked Mr. Price. " Why, how can I? " was 
 the answer; " they will not act ; how can I make 
 them do what they will not do ? " Eat bran 
 bread, fruit, and so on, was the advice given. 
 And in commenting on this case, Mr. Price said 
 to me : ' l just think of it ; there was a man who 
 had lived in this world for over eighty years, and 
 in all that time had failed to learn how to properly 
 care for his bowels. ' ' 
 
 I have been led to regard regularity of evacua- 
 tions from the bowels as one of the most import- 
 ant elements in the preservation of health and 
 the promotion of longevity ; and on the other 
 hand, costiveness or constipation as one of the 
 most active agents in the production of many of 
 the diseases not dependent upon the presence of 
 a special poison for their origin, and of producing 
 
12 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 such a vitiated and disordered condition of the 
 system, as to nurture and favor the development 
 of diseases even which do require these special 
 poisons. Therefore, I have become firmly con- 
 vinced that if human nature thoroughly understood 
 and appreciated the great necessity of regular 
 evacuations, and would practice such simple rules 
 as would secure them, much disease and discom- 
 fort would be avoided, and a better state of gene- 
 ral health and longer life would result. 
 
 Therefore, it is my purpose in this book, to en- 
 deavor to demonstrate, in easily understood lan- 
 guage, using the plainest and simplest words only, 
 the great importance, I might even say the abso- 
 lute necessity of this regularity, and to point out 
 certain hygienic rules which will insure it, leaving 
 the medicinal side of the question to the intelligent 
 physician ; I emphasize intelligent, because there 
 is no malady (I use the word advisedly) so diffi- 
 cult to overcome and so trying to the patience 
 both of the physician and his patient as an obstin- 
 ate case of constipation ; while, at the same time, 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 13 
 
 the indiscriminate and unintelligent use of medi- 
 cine, instead of relieving the constipation, only 
 serves to confirm the costive habit and render the 
 cure more tedious and difficult. Therefore, let 
 me tell you now (and I will tell you again further 
 on, and give you my reasons then) that you will 
 enjoy better health if you never take a single dose 
 of medicine to relieve constipation, without the 
 advice of your physician. Ever since the days of 
 the apostle St. Thomas (I think it was) and I dare 
 say even before his time, human nature has been 
 skeptical, more especially the intelligent side of it, 
 and hence has generally refused to believe any 
 statement implicitly for which it did not have a 
 good and satisfactory reason. Therefore, I am 
 going to give you the why and the wherefore of 
 every fact which I enunciate, and will not ask you 
 to take my word for anything, but to intelligently 
 understand and thoroughly appreciate all the ins 
 and outs of this question of constipation. In 
 order that I may do this, I will divide this little 
 book into three parts : — 
 
14 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 Part First will tell you about the functions, the 
 duties of the stomach and bowels. 
 
 Part Second will demonstrate the great necessity 
 for daily full and free evacuations from the bowels. 
 
 While Part Third will give you such rules of 
 life as will tend to produce them. 
 
 I trust these few pages may prove of benefit to 
 some one. I am sure the melancholy, despond- 
 ent and almost crazy dyspeptic will derive some 
 benefit from their perusal, while the suffering vic- 
 tim of hemorrhoids or piles will find in them 
 great relief from his agony. The bilious person 
 will find a means of relieving the engorgement of 
 his liver, if this organ be not absolutely diseased 
 in its structure, while those tortured with splitting 
 headaches will experience much relief by following 
 the directions contained herein. With the hope that 
 the poor sufferers from the various ills produced 
 and maintained by this hydra-headed monster, 
 constipation, may experience relief from the peru- 
 sal of this little book, I sympathetically dedicate 
 its pages to them. 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 15 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STOMACH AND BOWELS. 
 
 Many of my readers have no doubt seen the 
 little wagon belonging to an establishment for 
 dyeing articles of clothing, etc., which used to go 
 about our city a few years ago, bearing the curious 
 inscription on its side : " We live to dye, and we 
 dye to live." Well, let me here suggest a similar 
 curious motto : u We live to eat, and we eat to 
 live." This is a self-evident proposition. You 
 all know that it would be utterly impossible to 
 live unless you eat. Just as it is necessary to sup- 
 ply an engine with coal in order that you may 
 generate steam, so it is an essential of life that 
 you should supply a sufficiency of wholesome food 
 to your digestive organs, in order that they may 
 generate the so-called vital power, which enables 
 your various organs to perform their different 
 functions, the sum total of whose actions consti- 
 
16 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 tutes life. The organs mainly interested in the 
 reception of food and its preparation and trans- 
 formation into a condition which renders it capa- 
 ble of supplying nourishment to and repairing the 
 waste of the various organs and tissues of the body 
 are known to the physician under the comprehen- 
 sive term of the gastro-intestinal tract. Com- 
 mencing at the mouth, this tract or canal termi- 
 nates at the anus. For the sake of familiar 
 illustration, let me compare this canal to a rubber 
 hose. Suppose you take an ordinary hose or 
 rubber tube, about one and a half inches in diam- 
 eter, and about thirty feet long. Imagine one 
 end of this hose to be attached to the back part 
 of your mouth, and you have the commencement 
 of the passage way into the stomach. The food 
 received into your mouth passes back into this 
 tube and, after descending it for about one foot, 
 it reaches a point at which the tube has become 
 very much distended, so as to form a bag, so to 
 speak, about ten inches long and four or five 
 inches wide, and capable of holding from one to 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 17 
 
 two quarts \ this bag is your stomach. At the 
 right end of this bag the tube narrows down again 
 to near its original size in the throat, and for a 
 length of twenty-five feet lies coiled up in your 
 abdomen, constituting the small intestine or 
 bowel \ now, it again becomes slightly enlarged 
 (not nearly so much as when it formed your 
 stomach), and in this enlarged condition con- 
 tinues for a distance of about four or five feet, 
 to terminate in your fundament at the anus. It 
 is the function of your stomach to receive into 
 it your food, and to commence to digest it. Some 
 articles of food are completely digested in the 
 stomach, and are absorbed directly from it into 
 the blood and carried by this fluid to nourish the 
 system. Other articles are only partly digested 
 by the gastric fluid in the stomach, and after 
 undergoing this partial disintegration and trans- 
 formation, they are carried out of the stomach 
 into the small intestines, that portion of the rubber 
 tube where it has become narrowed, and meeting 
 here with new juices, their complete digestion is 
 
18 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 effected, and, transformed into a milky fluid, they 
 are taken up by small vessels provided for the 
 purpose, and carried to the blood, prepared to 
 become part of that fluid and to repair the wear 
 and tear of tissue.^ The stomach and bowels seem 
 to have the peculiar property of selecting from 
 the food taken in only that which is suitable and 
 appropriate to nourish the body, and of rejecting 
 the rest. Just as in coal you will often find cer- 
 tain impurities, not fit to generate heat, so in food 
 there are certain elements not suitable to produce 
 vital force, and these elements, refused by the 
 digestive and absorbing organs, are carried on by 
 the bowels, further and further along this tube, 
 until they are finally expelled from the body in 
 the act of defecation. Again, there are certain 
 vessels distributed all over the body, whose duty 
 it is to gather up the dead and useless particles of 
 ^tissue, whose work has been performed, and whose 
 continued presence in the system would be not 
 only unnecessary, but absolutely injurious. You 
 probably know that every act of life, even the 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 19 
 
 most unconscious, is performed at the expense of 
 some particles of the tissue of your body. Each 
 act causes the destruction of those particles which 
 have been engaged in the performance of that 
 act; just as the generation of heat in a stove causes 
 the destruction of the coal which has been instru- 
 mental in its production. I use the word de- 
 struction here in its liberal sense for the sake of 
 illustration. You all know, of course, that matter 
 is indestructible, and that what seems to be de- 
 struction is in reality only a change of condition. 
 So that these particles of your body are not in 
 reality destroyed, but are so altered in their com- 
 position by the different vital acts to whose per- 
 formance they have given their power, that they 
 are no longer fit to constitute a part of your body, 
 and by one of those beautiful laws of nature, they 
 must be removed, to furnish in turn nourishment 
 to the various articles of vegetable life, during 
 which process their composition is again so 
 changed that they are once more rendered fit to 
 nourish the human body. So that, wonderful as 
 
20 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 it may seem, some of the particles of your brain 
 which will be used up in reading and understand- 
 ing this little book, and which will be removed 
 from your body in a disgusting state of decompo- 
 sition, foul and unclean, and not fit to be touched, 
 may, in the course of years, again find their way 
 into your brain, through the agency of the food 
 you eat, and may again be used up in reading a 
 book, of which I may, perchance, happen to 
 be the author. These particles being unfit to 
 longer remain in the body, must be gotten rid of. 
 The vessels of which I have spoken, distributed 
 over the body, take them up and carry them to 
 the various eliminatory organs, whose duty it is 
 to remove them from the body, among which I 
 may mention the lungs, kidneys, etc. Prominent 
 among them stands the bowels ; the narrow por- 
 tion of the rubber tube. These vessels, constantly 
 acting, bring the dead and decayed matter to the 
 bowels and empty it into them. They are the 
 drain pipes, so to speak, coming from the different 
 rooms in the different houses, and carrying the 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 21 
 
 waste into the common sewer, with which the 
 bowels might be not inaptly compared. This 
 matter is received and stored up in the bowels as 
 waste matter is in your privy wells, until the 
 proper time comes for discharging it from the 
 body ; and let me here anticipate myself by tell- 
 ing you that the proper time is once a day. The 
 bowels not only play a vital part in the drama of 
 life, but, if I may be allowed a literary liberty, 
 t.iey have also a mechanical function, so to speak. 
 Your kidneys are constantly removing from the 
 blood the elements whose combination forms 
 urine. Now, if this urine trickled constantly 
 from your body, it would be very annoying. 
 Your clothing would be soiled, you would smell 
 bad, and the surface of your body would be ex- 
 coriated and made sore by the acid in your urine. 
 So your all-wise Creator furnished you with a 
 bladder, which is simply a reservoir, a receptacle, 
 as it were, for the urine. Here it accumulates, 
 drop by drop, until, the bladder being distended 
 to a certain extent, an impression is made on the 
 
22 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 nerves ramifying over its surface, and this im- 
 pression conveyed to the brain, the desire to 
 urinate is there originated; and so, in obedience 
 to this desire, your bladder is emptied, and thus 
 so much dead and decayed matter is removed 
 from your bodies. The same thing occurs with 
 your bowels. The dead matter accumulates 
 therein, as in the bladder, and finally, after reach- 
 ing a certain amount, the desire to evacuate it 
 arises, and so the refuse is removed. But let me 
 tell you that, differing from the case of your 
 bladder, if this desire to evacuate the bowels be 
 neglected, the nerves will become so blunted, and 
 the muscular wall of the intestine or rubber tube 
 so torpid, that eventually, not only will the desire 
 not arise of itself, that is to say, naturally, but it 
 will be almost an impossibility for you to force an 
 evacuation. You now understand enough of the 
 functions of the gastro-intestinal tract or rubber 
 tube to enable you to understand the remarks I 
 will have to make on the necessity of daily evacu- 
 ations from it, and how you can procure them. 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 23 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 NECESSITY FOR DAILY EVACUATIONS. 
 
 Every good housekeeper knows and appreciates 
 the necessity of semi-annual house cleanings. If 
 she does not scrub the floors before laying the 
 carpets in the fall, and wash the paint, she does 
 not consider that she has a pure and clean house. 
 Every maid of all work has a certain day on which 
 she must sweep the parlor, another for the dining 
 room, and so on, and every day she must dust all 
 the rooms. Windows must be washed and rooms 
 aired. And all this work for what ? In order 
 that the house may be cleaned of its impurities. 
 
 All large cities vie with each other in perfect- 
 ing their systems of drainage ; and for what ? In 
 order that this very dead and decayed animal tis- 
 sue of which I have been telling you may be re- 
 moved and prevented from contaminating the air 
 which we breathe, the water we drink, and the 
 
24 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 food we eat. New cities are considered unhealthy, 
 and why? Because, their drainage being imperfect, 
 much of this refuse matter remains, to poison the 
 inhabitants. An intelligent person going to live 
 in the country will seek sloping ground; and high 
 locations are generally considered the healthiest ; 
 why ? Because, according to natural laws, drain- 
 age will be better, and the sloping ground will 
 carry away from the vicinity of the houses that 
 dead and decayed matter which your bodies are 
 continually giving off. Now, does it not seem 
 strange to you, when you stop to reflect on it, that 
 intelligent men and women will go to all this 
 trouble and expense to remove deleterious matter 
 from their company, when it has once left their 
 bodies, and yet so many of them will go on from 
 day to day, unconcernedly performing their 
 various duties of life, seemingly ignorant of the 
 fact that an enormous quantity of foul, rotten and 
 unclean matter is within their bodies, poisoning 
 the very foundation of their lives, and sowing the 
 seeds of disease and premature death? Does it not 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 25 
 
 seem incredible ? Oh ! it is a terrible thing, this 
 ignorance of our own bodies. Was it not Pope 
 who said, the " noblest study of mankind is man." 
 I do sincerely hope the day is not far distant when 
 the study of physiology, in its elementary form, at 
 least, will constitute, as it ought, one of the main 
 points in the education of our boys and girls. 
 Ignorance of the functions of our bodies consti- 
 tutes a most prolific source of disease and misery. 
 How can a person be expected to treat his various 
 organs properly, if he is utterly ignorant of the 
 way in which he should treat them. 
 
 This trouble of constipation is very frequently 
 contracted by children when growing up. Their 
 parents before them have not been taught to 
 value the necessity of regular evacuations, hence 
 they have not impressed it on their children, and 
 so these boys and girls, when, in the midst of play 
 and amusement, the desire to defecate comes upon 
 them, resist it by all the means in their power, 
 rather than have their recreation interfered with, 
 and only yield obedience to it when its commands 
 
2tf CONSTIPATION, 
 
 become irresistible. Constantly and repeatedly 
 refusing to listen to this voice of nature demand- 
 ing a purification, a removal of poisonous matter, 
 the bowels finally become exhausted, as I have 
 told you, and a costive habit is established. Not 
 being taught differently in childhood, they do not 
 consider it injurious, when they grow to maturity, to 
 allow their bowels to remain unopened for days at 
 a time, and they, in turn, neglect this all-import- 
 ant matter in their children. 
 
 Dr. Lionel S. Beale, of England, says, in his 
 valuable and practical work on ' ' Slight Ail- 
 ments, ' ' " You will find that people who suffer 
 from habitual constipation, and those who have a 
 regular but quantitatively deficient action, com- 
 plain of certain unpleasant sensations. Although 
 there is no organic disease, and if you examined 
 every part of such person you would not find the 
 least indication of the slightest structural change, 
 the almost constant discomfort many of these 
 people have to endure is really great ; and not 
 only so, but various more or less serious conditions 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 27 
 
 may result from habitual constipation. In this 
 way that unpleasant condition known as hypo- 
 chondriasis in the male and as a form of hysteria 
 in the female, very often commences. There is 
 even the possibility that a condition bordering 
 upon insanity may be brought about by long con- 
 tinued improper action of the bowels. ' ' 
 
 Even your servant who attends to your furnace- 
 fire understands that he must clean out the ashes 
 if he desires a good fire. If he allows the ashes to 
 remain he may pile on the coal, but he will get no 
 heat; the coal cannot burn, it cannot do its work, 
 because the furnace is choked up with dead and 
 useless coal, in the shape of ashes. The contents 
 of the bowels are the human ashes. If you do not 
 remove them, you may eat, but your food will 
 not properly nourish you, for the evident reason 
 that the vital functions necessary for the transfor- 
 mation of this food into nourishment suitable for 
 the body are so interfered with by this mass of 
 decaying animal matter within you that they can- 
 not be properly performed. Any one who has 
 
28 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 been constipated for some days, and then has an 
 evacuation, cannot help but be struck by the ter- 
 ribly offensive odor of the passage, showing to 
 what an extent decomposition has taken place. 
 Do you know that the most prolific cause of 
 typhoid fever is emanations, in the shape of foul 
 gases, from privies and water-closets, these gases 
 being generated by the decomposition of the mat- 
 ter you have passed from your bowels ? Do you 
 also know that typhoid fever is characterized by 
 the presence of small ulcers or running sores in 
 small glands, which are situated in your intestines 
 or bowels? Now, does it seem out of place to im- 
 agine that the retention of a large mass of this 
 same rotten matter in your bowels, and its under- 
 going decomposition there, and liberating these 
 same poisonous gases, acting on these same little 
 glands, might produce this same typhoid fever, 
 or, at least, a condition very similar to it ? Do 
 you know what hemorrhoids or piles are ? They 
 are an enlargement, an engorgement with blood, 
 of the small veins in the vicinity of the anus. 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 29 
 
 Now, can you not understand that the presence 
 of a large amount of this poisonous matter in the 
 lower part of the bowels — matter which ought not 
 to be there, and which, consequently, is a foreign 
 body — will so irritate the delicate lining of your 
 bowels — a lining as delicate as that which coats 
 the inside of your mouth and cheeks, with which 
 it is both continuous and identical — as to cause an 
 extra amount of blood to flow into its vessels, and 
 this costive habit continuing, will eventually pro- 
 duce a chronic engorgement or congestion of 
 these vessels, and you have all the sufferings and 
 tortures of piles, as a result of this constipation ? 
 In women the womb occupies a position directly 
 in front of the bowels, from which it is separated 
 only by a thin membrane. Now, can you not 
 easily perceive how this congestion of the bowels 
 will also have a tendency to cause too much blood 
 to flow into the womb, and to produce an en- 
 gorgement of it, with all its attendant suffering ? 
 Again, the womb is movable ; it is suspended in 
 the cavity of the abdomen by ligaments or cords, 
 
30 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 sufficiently stout and strong to keep it in its pro- 
 per position when the organ is healthy; but sup- 
 pose this costive habit so irritates the womb as to 
 cause a great, an excessive flow of blood into it ; 
 of course it will be heavier than natural, the in- 
 crease in weight being directly in proportion to 
 the increased flow of blood. Being so much 
 heavier than usual, the cords are unable to hold 
 it in position, it drops down from its own weight, 
 and we have constipation, producing all the mis- 
 • fortunes of falling of the womb. Still more ; this 
 constant irritation in the bowels keeps up a con- 
 stant excess of blood in the lining membrane of 
 the bowels, and you ultimately have a chronic 
 inflammation of this tube set up, which, besides 
 causing much pain and uneasiness in the abdo- 
 men, interferes with the proper digestion and ab- 
 sorption of your food, and hence all the phenom- 
 ena of nutrition are impeded. 
 
 This mass of dead tissue remaining in the 
 bowels undergoes decomposition, and being un- 
 able to escape in the natural way, some portion 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 31 
 
 of it is re-absorbed by the vessels ramifying over 
 the surface of the bowels, and is carried into the 
 blood, so that this fluid, when going its rounds 
 to nourish the various tissues and organs, carries 
 with it some of this poisonous material, and so 
 poisoned blood gives poisoned nourishment to 
 your various organs and parts. 
 
 A prominent physician of our city once com- 
 pared the brain and stomach to the two balls or 
 ends of a dumb-bell, while the nervous com- 
 munication between them was likened to the 
 shaft of a dumb-bell. This illustration he used to 
 demonstrate the intimate connection which exists 
 between the brain and the stomach, through the 
 agency of the nervous system. The bowels, as 
 you now understand, are simply a prolongation of 
 the stomach ; they are most intimately connected 
 with the brain by a large number of nerves. In 
 children one of the commonest causes of convul- 
 sions is constipation, and the presence of worms 
 in the bowels; the worms acting as an irritant, a 
 foreign body, precisely the same as a collection 
 
32 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 of dead and decomposed matter does, will cause 
 an irritation in the bowels, and this irritation, 
 acting through the nerves by what is known to 
 physicians as reflex action, will so irritate the 
 brain as to give rise to many disordered phenom- 
 ena on its part. Can you not, therefore, under- 
 stand how easy it will be for constipation to pro- 
 duce those violent headaches to which costive 
 people are so subject. 
 
 The liver is one of the largest and one of the 
 most important organs in your body. How many 
 hundred times have you heard your friends say, 
 "I have a bilious attack ?' ' These bilious attacks 
 are caused by the incomplete removal from, and 
 consequently, a partial retention of the bile in the 
 blood, where it does not belong. When the liver 
 removes this bile from the blood it stores it up in 
 a small sac in that organ, from which it ultimately 
 passes through a small duct or canal into the bowels, 
 into which it empties at a short distance beyond 
 the point where the narrowing of the bowel after 
 its dilatation to form the stomach takes place. 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 33 
 
 The membrane which lines this duct is continuous 
 and identical with that which lines the bowels. 
 Now, can you not clearly understand how, when 
 this undue retention of dead matter has caused an 
 inflammation, an excess of blood in the lining of 
 the bowels, this inflammation will extend up the 
 bowels, through this duct or tube, and ultimately 
 involve the liver itself. And let me tell you that 
 neither the liver nor any other organ can properly 
 do its duty if it is in a state of inflammation, if it 
 has too much blood in it* This temporary en- 
 gorgement, caused by a temporary constipation, if 
 frequently repeated, will, by degrees, abnormally 
 distend the vessels of the liver ■ you will have a 
 condition of chronic inflammation or engorge- 
 ment, or too much blood produced, which, in 
 turn, will cause degeneration and disease of the 
 structure of the liver itself* So you have many 
 cases of serious liver disease, induced by consti- 
 pation. Of course, I need not tell you that the 
 poisoned blood which I have said must result from 
 constipation will carry some of this poison to all 
 
34 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 the various parts of the body, and will produce 
 injurious effects on them, thus interfering with the 
 whole function of life. Let me close the list of 
 ills produced by constipation, by telling you that 
 death even may be caused by simple costiveness, 
 when it has existed for a long time, and has be- 
 come firmly established. To support this rather 
 startling statement, let me quote the following 
 remarkable case from Dr. Beale's work, already 
 referred to. He says: "Constipation has caused 
 death. I have myself seen such a case. I recol- 
 lect an old lady who had been bed-ridden for 
 years, and was, in fact, dying when she came 
 under my observation, whose abdomen had in- 
 creased to an enormous size. To my great aston- 
 ishment, when I came to examine it, I found the 
 swelling due to an enormous accumulation of hard 
 fecal matter. There was no fluid, and very little 
 gas; but the whole abdomen (or belly) seemed 
 occupied by a huge mass of hardened faeces, I 
 should think, amounting in weight to thirty or 
 forty pounds. Unfortunately, I only saw the 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 35 
 
 patient a few hours before death, when she was 
 reduced to the last state of exhaustion, and when 
 it was impossible to interfere. In this case, faeces 
 had probably been gradually accumulating in the 
 intestines without attracting notice. The patient 
 being bed-ridden, the circumstance seems to have 
 escaped observation. Probably if a medical prac- 
 titioner had been allowed to interfere some six 
 months before, the patient might have been saved. 
 Injections might have been given, and the con- 
 tents of the bowel thus removed, before any harm 
 to it had resulted." 
 
 I have now told you enough, I think, to make 
 you fully realize the 'absolute necessity of free and 
 daily evacuations from the bowels. You will now 
 know, if you did not before, that the evil results 
 of constipation are not confined to the bowels, 
 but ramify throughout the whole organism. Indeed, 
 they have no boundary. Their field of operation 
 is only limited by the limits of the body itself. 
 
 Let us now see how you can procure these much 
 desired daily evacuations without the use of drugs. 
 
CONSTIPATION, 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 HOW TO PROCURE DAILY EVACUATIONS WITHOUT 
 THE USE OF DRUGS. 
 
 In the above title I emphasize the word Drugs, 
 because I wish you to understand that the words 
 drugs and medicines do not necessarily mean one 
 and the same thing, though to the non -profes- 
 sional mind these terms convey the same idea, and 
 the ordinary individual regards both drugs and 
 medicines as articles which must come from the 
 druggist's shelf. All drugs are medicines, but all 
 medicines are not necessarily drugs. To point 
 this difference, let me quote from the standard 
 and exhaustive work on "Therapeutics and Ma- 
 teria Medica, ' ' by one of the greatest authorities 
 now living, Professor Alfred Stille, of Philadel- 
 phia. In the very first line of his introductory 
 chapter, he says, "Medicines are substances used 
 for the cure of diseases. ' ' Further on, he says, 
 " In some sense, even, all food is medicinal, for it 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 37 
 
 counteracts hunger, the first symptom of a disease 
 which tends directly to death." The word drug 
 is less comprehensive in its meaning, and ought 
 to be confined to those articles which the general 
 public understand by the term medicine. Its use 
 should be restricted to those articles whose sole 
 use in the human system is to cure disease, while 
 many articles comprised under the head of medi- 
 cines (as Professor Stille has told us) may be used 
 not only to cure disease, but also simply as food. 
 To illustrate this, in what I am sorry to say will 
 probably be the most familiar manner to the ma- 
 jority of men, let me remind you that when you 
 take a drink of brandy to relieve a stomach-ache, 
 the brandy might here be considered a medicine, 
 but you would hardly be willing to call it a drug, 
 though, indeed, I must confess, it takes rank 
 among the poisons. Again, many a severe case 
 of dyspepsia will be cured by strict adherence to 
 a milk diet. Milk is here a medicine, but no one 
 will venture to call it a drug. I draw this dis- 
 tinction between medicines and drugs, because I 
 
38 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 am now going to tell you that while much benefit 
 will be derived by the person of costive habit 
 from the use of certain medicines, about which I 
 will inform you, nothing but injury and a further 
 confirmation of the constipation can result from 
 the indiscriminate use of drugs ; a habit which I 
 exceedingly regret to say is so common among 
 our people, that the manufacturers of the various 
 patent cure-all, anti-bilious and anti-costive pills 
 have been enabled to build up enormous fortunes 
 founded upon the gullibility (if I may be allowed 
 the word) and ignorance of the laws of physiology 
 of their victims. I use the word victims advis- 
 edly. I pity from the bottom of my heart the 
 poor, well-meaning person, who, as a result of 
 ignorance of the functions of his own body, will 
 pay his money for and consume large quantities 
 of these medicines, whose chief merits lie in the 
 cunning minds of their manufacturers, and in the 
 expensive and naming advertisements of proper- 
 ties which they do not possess, and by which 
 means many intelligent persons are duped into 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 39 
 
 buying them, and do not discover their mistake 
 until very serious and sometimes irreparable in- 
 jury has been done. Many of these medicines 
 will open the bowels, it is true ; I do not deny 
 this ; but you must not be satisfied with this super- 
 ficial action ; look deeper, and see what they do. 
 They open the bowels because they contain cer- 
 tain drugs which possess the property of stimu- 
 lating the muscular tissue in the bowels or rubber 
 tube to increased action, and so they force the 
 contents of this tube further and further along, 
 until they finally reach the anus and are expelled. 
 Stimulation is an artificial process. In order 
 that our functions may be properly carried on, 
 and that we may have healthy life, there must 
 be nothing artificial about us. All our actions, 
 voluntary and involuntary, must conform to na- 
 ture and be natural. You all know that stimula- 
 tion is always followed by a corresponding de- 
 pression. A certain quantity of alcohol taken 
 into the system will stimulate every part of it ; all 
 your organs will act more rapidly, you will live 
 
40 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 faster, as it were. When this stimulating action 
 has passed away you suffer from depression, evi- 
 denced in numerous ways. 
 
 You are morose, melancholy and low-spirited, 
 evidencing mental depression. You experience 
 chilly sensations, showing depression of the func- 
 tion which generates heat. You have no appetite, 
 showing depression of the general system. Your 
 stomach cannot properly digest what you take into 
 it, showing depression of the digestive function. 
 And so on indefinitely, all your varied functions 
 will clearly make known to you the inevitable de- 
 pression that always follows stimulation. When 
 the habitual drinker of alcohol has taken a glass or 
 two too much at night, he knows full well the 
 general depression which he experiences in the 
 morning, and unfortunately he finds it necessary 
 to consume more alcohol, in order to again stimu- 
 late his varied functions, so as to once more bring 
 them up to that standard which, in the ordinary 
 healthy, temperate person would constitute only 
 natural action. Ultimately his system becomes so 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 41 
 
 accustomed to this stimulating action of alcohol 
 that his organs cannot act properly without it, and 
 so, in order to live with any degree of comfort, 
 he is obliged to daily saturate his tissues with this 
 poison ; or if he has sufficient manly resolution to 
 discard this baneful habit, he must suffer terrible 
 depression and many physical ills before his sys- 
 tem can be brought to that healthy and natural 
 condition by which it may be enabled to act 
 simply as a result of the natural causes furnished 
 to it by the Founder of Nature. So it is with this 
 indiscriminate use of opening medicine. The bowels 
 become ultimately so accustomed to the artificial 
 stimulating action of powerful drugs, that they 
 absolutely refuse to move without their aid ; they 
 are dependent on them for sufficient power to ex- 
 pel their contents ; and as with alcohol, so with 
 these drugs, long continued use breeds such toler- 
 ance of their effects that each successive dose 
 must needs be larger than the preceding one, until, 
 finally, enormous doses are required to procure a 
 single evacuation from the bowels, which should 
 
42 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 have occurred naturally and spontaneously if this 
 pernicious habit had not been cultivated. I could 
 tell you of one case where from twenty to thirty 
 powerful pills are required to move the unnaturally 
 torpid bowels. Do you not now think it wrong 
 and very injurious to use these medicines, about 
 which you know absolutely nothing, without first 
 obtaining the advice of a competent physician, 
 who has made the action of these medicines the 
 study of his life ? If any lawyer reads this book, 
 let me ask him if he would not consider a man 
 very foolish, and very much to be criticised for 
 want of good judgment, if, throwing aside the 
 services of the legal profession, he were to under- 
 take the management of his own law business, 
 without having had any previous training in that 
 line ? And so on, I might draw the comparison 
 in every profession. But when we come to medi- 
 cine, this question assumes much more import- 
 ance ; it then really becomes a vital question. 
 When a man meets with financial misfortunes, his 
 friends all say, to console him for his loss, " Oh, 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 43 
 
 well, you have good health." Those of a reli- 
 gious turn of mind daily pray for a preservation 
 of health. Parents are anxiously solicitous about 
 the health of their children. And yet, in spite 
 of all this desire for health, these very persons will 
 deliberately undertake to doctor themselves, and, 
 as invariably happens when a man undertakes 
 anything about which he knows nothing, they 
 make many errors, and, instead of doing them- 
 selves good, only make matters worse; and this 
 in the face of the fact that their Creator has 
 placed at their service the science of medicine 
 and its practitioners, in order that all curable ills 
 may be intelligently treated. This is not a plea 
 for physicians ; far from it. Were I selfishly to 
 consider the doctor, to the exclusion of the wel- 
 fare of his patient, I would advise you all to freely 
 use these proprietary medicines and wonderful 
 specifics for everything ; because by so doing you 
 would ultimately bring about such a state of ill 
 health that you would of necessity fall into the 
 hands of the physician, and then your system 
 
44 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 would be so deranged that it would cost you much 
 more time and many more dollars to secure a 
 restoration to health than if you had sought intel- 
 ligent counsel and advice in the beginning of 
 your trouble. The venerable lawyer of our city, 
 the Hon. Eli K. Price, tells me one of the most 
 important secrets of his great age (nearly eighty- 
 four years) and splendid health, when he says 
 " I am as watchful as to my food as is the smelter 
 of iron that his furnace shall not chill and choke ; 
 and regulate my food to prevent constipation or 
 laxity, rather than resort to medicine, which I 
 avoid using until necessary ; and in illness, act in 
 strict obedience to my chosen physician of regular 
 graduation.'' And he tells me that though he 
 has been sick at times, from overwork, when he 
 would be compelled to pay attention to hygienic 
 laws, that "my recuperations have been to a 
 higher point of health, even to the present year, 
 when eighty-three years old." Have I not, now, 
 aid enough to convince you that the unintelligent 
 use of drugs can only be productive of ultimate harm? 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 4o 
 
 It is like playing with tire; if you trifle with it long 
 enough, you will surely be burned. So let me 
 beg you, if you desire good health — and show me 
 the man or woman who really and sincerely does 
 not, and I am prepared to attach my name to a 
 certificate of insanity — never to take a single dose 
 of opening medicine after you have read these 
 pages, without the advice of your physician. 
 Sometimes it is necessary to use them, but let 
 your doctor be the judge. If the hygienic direc- 
 tions I will give you, when fairly and patiently 
 tried, do not suffice to establish a regular habit of 
 evacuations, make up your mind that the consti- 
 pation from which you are suffering is in reality a 
 disease, as much so as pleurisy or pneumonia, 
 and go to your doctor at once and follow his di- 
 rections implicitly. 
 
 I might here say that some persons seem to be 
 so constituted that an evacuation only every sec- 
 ond day constitutes in them the natural action of 
 the bowels, and they do not seem to suffer the 
 slightest inconvenience from it ; and again, some 
 
46 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 persons in good health will have two and may be 
 three passages daily. In these cases such persons 
 may rest easy and satisfied ; they need not endeav- 
 or to procure daily evacuations. Still, however, 
 these are only exceptional instances, every rule 
 has exceptions ; and so I can, without fear, enun- 
 ciate the fundamental principle, that " without a 
 daily free evacuation from the bowels perfect health 
 is impossible. ' ' 
 
 Let us begin where this costive habit usually 
 commences, that is to say, in childhood. Most 
 babies suffer from constipation. If your baby's 
 bowels are not moved daily, I will tell you a sim- 
 ple procedure which will generally secure a 
 passage. Take a piece of ordinary note paper, not 
 too stiff, and roll it into an old-fashioned lamp 
 lighter ; insert the sharp end carefully, gently and 
 gradually into the bowels, for a distance of about 
 two inches; let it remain for a few minutes. The 
 presence of this paper will slightly irritate the 
 bowels, not enough to do harm, but just enough to 
 bring on sufficient action of their muscular coat to 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 47 
 
 expel the contents. Smear the point with Castile 
 soap before introducing, so that it may more easi- 
 ly slip in. If this fails, procure a small, hard- 
 rubber syringe, and daily inject into the bowel 
 one or two syringefuls of warm (iiot hot) water ; 
 this will aid the contraction of the bowel, and 
 will, at the same time, soften and dilute its con- 
 tents, so that they may the more easily be carried 
 out. If this warm water fails, use a little Castile 
 soap in the water. If the bowels still remain un- 
 opened, substitute plain olive oil for the soap and 
 water. If your baby is naturally costive, that is to 
 say, if he does not have a regular daily evacuation, 
 you should practice this injection daily, and I 
 would recommend bedtime, after baby is un- 
 dressed and just before being put into bed, because 
 a full and free evacuation from the bowels will 
 insure to him a full night of sound and refreshing 
 sleep. Attention to the bowels becomes of para- 
 mount importance after baby has commenced to 
 cut his teeth. All mothers know that when teething 
 babies are particularly liable to convulsions. 
 
48 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 This is due to the fact that the teeth, in forcing 
 their way through the gums, irritate and inflame 
 them, and this irritation of the gums is conveyed, 
 by the reflex action about which I have told you, 
 to the brain, and irritating this delicate organ, 
 will cause convulsions. Now, if, in addition to 
 the irritation from teething, baby's bowels are 
 also irritated by the retention in them of a foul 
 mass of decayed matter, the liability to convul- 
 sions is doubled. This irritation of the gums will 
 produce a feverish state of the blood ; now, if the 
 bowels are costive this feverishness will be in- 
 creased. If you are nursing your baby, it will be 
 well for you to eat freely of such food as I shall 
 tell you, further on, has a tendency to open the 
 bowels ; baby receiving this through the medium 
 of your milk, will be made regular. Be careful, 
 however, to avoid such articles as experience 
 tells you will give baby colic. If these simple 
 means fail, do not resort to castor oil or any other 
 drug, but ask your doctor what to do. 
 
 When your baby becomes a little girl or boy, 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 49 
 
 and is able to toddle about and eat table food, 
 you can, in addition to the means I have already 
 indicated, use certain articles of food. A very 
 good practice is to give your children oatmeal 
 mush for breakfast. This oatmeal, after all the 
 nourishment is removed from it by digestion in 
 the stomach and bowels, still leaves a large indi- 
 gestible residue, which is somewhat irritating to 
 the lining membrane of the bowels ; not enough 
 here, again, to do harm, but just enough to remove 
 the torpidity which may exist and excite the tube 
 to healthy action. Bran bread, unbolted flour, 
 grits, cracked wheat, and the like, may also be 
 used at breakfast for the same purpose. One of 
 the most important elements in establishing and 
 maintaining a habit of daily evacuations is 
 regularity. When I am requested to prescribe for 
 a case of constipation, my first instruction to the 
 patient is to determine what time of the day is 
 the most convenient for them to devote to this 
 important function, and when they have settled 
 on this hour, I insist upon their seeking the water 
 
50 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 closet precisely at the same hour each day. I tell 
 them to remain there for a few minutes, and to 
 strain gently ; if they strain very much they will 
 be liable to do themselves a great deal of harm. 
 If they fail at first, I tell them to go the next day 
 at the same time, and so on, day after day, until, 
 ultimately, this process of coaxing will have the 
 desired effect on the lazy and torpid bowels, and 
 a regular daily habit will be established, and the 
 desire will manifest itself each day at precisely the 
 same hour. Then I caution them that, having 
 once established, they must never neglect this de- 
 sire. Every one has experienced the fact that if 
 you resist a desire to have the bowels moved, after 
 a little while this desire will disappear, and no 
 effort of the will can bring it back ; well, one 
 day's neglect of this desire, in a person who has 
 been for some time constipated, will, in many 
 cases, derange the bowels for several days. So, 
 as soon as your baby is large enough, put him 
 regularly every day, at the same hour, on his 
 chair, and giving him toys to amuse himself, let 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 51 
 
 him remain there until his bowels have been 
 moved. Do not fret and worry if your baby is 
 costive ; nearly all babies and young children are 
 so. I once heard a prominent physician, the 
 father of a large family, say that his different 
 children came to him daily for an injection, with 
 as much regularity as they would eat their 
 dinners. He would give them the injection, 
 but at the same time would use the means I 
 have given you to produce a regular habit, and 
 ultimately, as his children grew older, the injec- 
 tions became unnecessary. Keep up this super- 
 vision until your children have grown to be young 
 men and women, and they will not forget the 
 training they have had, but will continue through 
 life to understand and appreciate the necessity of 
 regularity in this respect, and will, in turn, im- 
 press it upon their children, and so I warrant you 
 not a small share of disease and bad health will 
 be averted. You know how necessary it some- 
 times is to coax an obstinate child to do as you 
 may desire, and every one is familiar with the 
 
52 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 coaxing requisite to move a balky horse. Well, 
 this process which I have just described to you is 
 one of coaxing : by offering the opportunity at 
 regular and stated intervals, you coax, you beg, as 
 it were, the obstinate and lazy bowels to healthy 
 action, to do as you desire, and as in the cases of 
 the obstinate child and the balky horse, your 
 efforts will ultimately be crowned with success, 
 and the bowels, like the child and the horse, will 
 eventually yield to your repeated pleadings, and 
 a regular habit will be established. If you do not 
 at first succeed in establishing this habit of regu- 
 larity, do not fret and worry ; if you do, you will 
 make yourself feverish, fretful and irritable, prob- 
 ably cause a headache and make matters worse. 
 Take the refusal of your bowels to act coolly and 
 philosophically ; wait until the next day and try 
 again. I need hardly tell you that should the de- 
 sire to evacuate arise before the next day comes, 
 do not refuse obedience to its commands. 
 
 I have known many obstinate cases of constipa- 
 tion to be ultimately overcome by the following 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 53 
 
 simple method : Pare an apple and eat it before 
 breakfast, chewing it thoroughly, until it becomes 
 pulpy, before swallowing ; on top of this drink a 
 glass of cold water, then eat your breakfast. In 
 many cases a desire to have the bowels moved 
 will be experienced immediately after breakfast, 
 when this habit is persevered in. I have known 
 some persons who never experienced the desire 
 immediately after breakfast, but who, after a short 
 walk, would have a copious movement. These 
 persons would always walk to their place of busi- 
 ness and seek the water-closet immediately after 
 reaching there. Muscular exercise is a most pow- 
 erful agent in promoting regularity of bowel ac- 
 tion. I have known persons who were subject to 
 attacks of constipation and biliousness, foul mouth 
 and disordered stomach, who would take a brisk 
 five-mile walk in the pure, bracing and invigora- 
 ting air, and upon returning home would have a 
 copious discharge from the bowels, followed by 
 immediate relief from all their distressing symp- 
 toms. You all know that a brisk walk in the 
 
54 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 country, where the air is pure and uncontaminated, 
 has a tendency to quicken the circulation and to 
 elevate the spirits and remove the general depres- 
 sion, physical and mental, to which the residents 
 of our large and crowded cities are so liable ; 
 well, in this general elevation or natural stimulation 
 of all our muscles and organs, the muscular coat of 
 the bowels comes in for its share, and, stimulated 
 to a certain extent, its unnatural torpidity is 
 removed, and it obtains sufficient strength and 
 vigor to expel its contents. Also, this muscular 
 exercise causes a change, a transformation of the 
 muscular elements concerned in its performance 
 into so much dead and decayed matter, seeking 
 removal from the body, wherein it has performed 
 its duty, and is no longer of any use ; so that this 
 additional bulk of matter, being superadded to 
 that already stored up in the bowels, makes a 
 stronger impression on them, the demand for 
 removal becomes greater, and hence the torpid 
 bowels are finally compelled, in spite of their 
 laziness, to act. So I would recommend to the 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. DO 
 
 costive man a brisk, daily walk of five miles in the 
 country, and to the woman half that distance. If 
 you can secure pleasant and cheerful company in 
 this walk, so much the better ; if you cannot, em- 
 ploy your mind with pleasant thoughts, to the 
 exclusion of business. Select a beautiful country, 
 in which the aspect of nature is varied, so that the 
 eye may not become tired and the mind exhausted 
 by monotony. Make this walk a pleasure, and 
 not a duty. Do not tell me that you cannot find 
 time for this daily walk ; that you are too busy, 
 and so on. Charles Dickens, who probably per- 
 formed as much and as satisfactory work in his 
 lifetime as any man who ever lived, was able to 
 make time for an almost daily ten-mile walk, to 
 which he invariably resorted when he felt out of 
 sorts and in poor spirits. When oppressed from 
 too much work, and I dare say, sometimes fromcos- 
 tiveness, he would write, in his off-hand way, to 
 his intimate friend, " Come for a stroll in the 
 country and a chop. ' ' Off they would start, and 
 after a brisk five-mile walk in the country sur- 
 
56 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 rounding London, would indulge in a chop and 
 a mug of ale or beer, and, after a short rest, back 
 they would speed to town. These walks, enliv- 
 ened and made pleasant by the companionship 
 and conversation of his most ' intimate friend, 
 during which, no doubt, they would exchange 
 ideas upon and discuss the various themes sug- 
 gested to them by the surrounding nature, would 
 always bring the great novelist back to the city 
 full of health and good spirits, and amply pre- 
 pared to make up by increased power of applica- 
 tion (for the time consumed in recreation) to his 
 favorite literary work, which has made his name 
 famous for all time in every portion of the globe 
 in which the English language is or may be 
 spoken. Do not neglect this all important matter 
 of exercise. I know you are prepared to doubt 
 the influence of exercise of your legs in causing 
 extra activity of your bowels, but nevertheless, in 
 spite of your skepticism, this relation does exist ; 
 and if you do not believe me, ask some doctor in 
 whose opinion you have confidence. Some judg- 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 57 
 
 ment must, however, be used in this matter of 
 exercise, or you may do more harm than good. 
 "One man's meat is another man's poison," you 
 know. You must ever bear in mind that there 
 does not exist such a thing as a " universal pana- 
 cea." This very five-mile walk may cure consti- 
 pation in one person and only serve to confirm 
 the habit in another. Try it, however, and let 
 your own experience be your guide. As a rule, a 
 person whose occupation is of a sedentary nature 
 will be more benefited by a short walk, say of two 
 or three miles, than he will by one of five. Why ? 
 Because evenness of life is most conducive to 
 health. If a person be accustomed to a quiet, 
 sedentary life, and suddenly breaks away from 
 his work to indulge in a brisk five-mile walk, the 
 change from his usual mode of life is too sudden 
 and severe, and his system receives an unpleasant 
 shock, which it will probably resent. While, on 
 the other hand, one whose occupation is of an 
 active character will receive, not a shock, but a 
 gentle and pleasant stimulus from this same walk. 
 
58 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 In connection with this recommendation of walk- 
 ing, let me urge upon you the free use of all kinds 
 of muscular exercise, such as riding, driving, 
 swimming, skating, and the like, using the same 
 judgment in their employment as I have indicated 
 in my remarks on walking. They will not only 
 serve to improve your general health, but will exert 
 a specific influence in aiding the torpid bowels. 
 I must here condemn one of the most usual 
 forms of exercise indulged in by young men, but 
 will make a qualified condemnation, If you will 
 get into a boat and paddle leisurely two or three 
 miles, resting every few minutes for a few seconds, 
 you will derive positive benefit from this form of 
 exercise* But how few young men row after this 
 fashion. They join a club, and. from the start 
 their ambition is to form one of the racing crew ; 
 consequently, they practice^ hour after hour and 
 day after day, rowing violently, for many miles, 
 and imagine they are developing their strength. 
 They do develop their voluntary muscles, that is, 
 those under the control of their will, but this they 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 59 
 
 do in many cases at the expense of their vital 
 organs. This violent strain which they put on 
 their hearts will, in many cases, so injure this 
 important organ that serious disease will ensue, 
 and though they may become magnificent speci- 
 mens of physical development, they break down 
 prematurely, and become old men in middle 
 life, invalids, while still young, with a diseased 
 heart. This fact is familiarly illustrated in 
 Wilkie Collins' novel, "Man and Wife" (I 
 think it is), in the person of Geofifry Hamlyn, 
 who is one of the typical English amateur 
 athletes of the present day. His sole aim in life 
 seems to be to develop his muscles. He succeeds 
 admirably, and is a marvel of brute strength. He 
 undertakes to engage in a running match, though 
 warned by physicians that he may ruin himself by 
 so doing. He enters the race and out-distances 
 all competitors ; when nearing the end he sudden- 
 ly totters and falls unconscious on the track; 
 he is picked up a confirmed invalid, a broken- 
 down man, with heart disease, and this once mag- 
 
60 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 nificent specimen of manhood, though still young 
 and apparently robust, seems like an old man, and 
 drags out a miserable existence of suffering, ulti- 
 mately dying many years sooner than was neces- 
 sary. He had overstrained his heart and it had 
 succumbed. Again, even though you may not 
 desire to train for a race, you will generally form 
 one of a crew of four or six, who start out to row 
 a given distance. Under the command of a cox- 
 swain you all pull together, and are anxious to 
 make your boat speed through the water. Should 
 you become exhausted, your pride urges you to 
 keep up with your companions, and so, neglect- 
 ing the warning you receive, you continue to 
 overstrain your heart, and, ultimately, disease 
 will ensue. 
 
 I would decry running as an exercise ; this 
 form of exercise is no better than walking, 
 and is far more dangerous. In a word, all 
 violent exercise is injurious, and none should be 
 indulged in that will cause the heart to beat vio- 
 lently and very rapidly. Exercise should never 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 61 
 
 be carried to a point of actual fatigue ; stop a 
 little short of this and you will benefit yourself; 
 go beyond it and you do yourself an injury. 
 
 Before leaving this question of exercise, I will 
 for an instant refer to a paper read at a recent 
 meeting of the Philadelphia County Medical 
 Society, by Dr. Benjamin Lee, on "The Treat- 
 ment of Constipation by the i Swedish Movement 
 Cure.'' " In it he describes certain motions or 
 movements, all of which have for their ultimate 
 object the stimulation or excitation of the torpid 
 bowels. The first movement he describes as one 
 of forced inspiration, by which an extra amount 
 of stimulating oxygen is taken into the body, 
 thus increasing the vitality of the general system, 
 and, at the same time, that of the bowels. The 
 other movements are described, some as being 
 passive, while others may be active; that is to 
 say, some are performed by the patient himself, 
 while others require the manipulations of an oper- 
 ator. They all may be reduced to the simple 
 phrase, " muscular exercise." They simply consist 
 
62 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 in giving exercise to every muscle in the body, 
 and can be most intelligently described, without 
 going into details, which space forbids, by telling 
 you to twist and turn your body and limbs into 
 every conceivable shape of which'they are capable. 
 One important point is to repeatedly produce 
 extreme erection of the spine, to throw the upper 
 part of your body, head and shoulders, far back ; 
 this will tend to expand your abdominal cavity 
 or belly, thus giving more space to your bowels 
 and auxiliary organs in the abdomen to act freely, 
 which may have been cramped and interfered 
 with by the common habit of leaning forward. 
 Dr. Lee says, " There are very few cases of con- 
 stipation, however obstinate, which will resist a 
 fortnight of this treatment daily, and many cases 
 will yield in a week. ' ' 
 
 I have said what I have about exercise because 
 what I tell you is not only pertinent to your 
 general health, but it will also have an influence 
 on your bowels. 
 
 Friction with a coarse towel over the abdomen 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 63 
 
 will have a tendency to stimulate the bowels to 
 action, and should always be practiced. Dr. 
 Birch, in his work on "Constipation," recom- 
 mends pressure or kneading over the abdomen, 
 to be made as follows : Commence low down on 
 the right side, and press gently, but firmly, with 
 your hand, and draw it upward until you reach 
 the lower border of the ribs, then cross the abdo- 
 men to the left side and descend to the lowest 
 possible point. This is the course taken by that 
 portion of the bowels which I have described to 
 you as the large intestine, and, by this pressure, 
 you gently stimulate this part of the rubber tube 
 to increased action, and so enable it to move 
 along and finally expel its contents. This pres- 
 sure should be practiced twenty or thirty times, 
 morning and evening, and in connection with 
 the other measures I have or will indicate. 
 
 A cold bath in the morning will be beneficial 
 to some people, and many claim for it a high 
 rank among practices calculated to stimulate the 
 bowels to action. Try it, and if it agrees with 
 
64 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 you, persevere in it. If, however, you feel badly 
 after its use ; if the surface of your body feels 
 chilly and looks blue, make up your mind that a 
 cold bath is injurious to you, and abandon it. 
 You may then substitute for it the following pro- 
 cedure : Wring a towel out in cold water and 
 lay it over the surface of your abdomen for a few 
 minutes ; in other words, take a cold abdominal 
 bath ; in many cases this will sufficiently stimulate 
 the bowels to cause them to act, while you will 
 escape the bad results to your system at large 
 which the full cold bath might produce. In other 
 cases the same procedure, substituting warm for 
 cold water, will prove efficacious. 
 
 We now come to a very important factor in 
 the promotion of regularity of evacuations from 
 the bowels. Diet or Food. Some articles of food, 
 as you no doubt are already aware, will have a 
 tendency to produce costiveness, while other ar- 
 ticles will promote regularity of action. I have 
 already advocated the use of oatmeal, and bran 
 bread, and the like, and told you how they act. 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. ().") 
 
 Let us now examine this very important matter 
 of diet more fully, and see of how much benefit 
 a correct knowledge on this subject may be to 
 you. Fruit is an exceedingly potent agent in 
 this connection. It contains nature's purgative. 
 But here, again, we must use judgment. You all 
 know the saying about fruit : ' 'In the morning it 
 is as gold ; silver at noon, and lead at night.' 1 '' I 
 have in my mind, while writing, a case in which 
 this saying is almost literally true. In this case, 
 an apple or any kind of fruit eaten before break- 
 fast, and followed by the glass of water already 
 recommended, invariably produces a full and 
 copious passage immediately after breakfast ; but 
 if this same person should eat an apple just before 
 going to bed, it will lie on his stomach like lead, 
 and ten chances to one he will lie awake half the 
 night, tortured with dyspepsia. So, my costive 
 friends, cultivate a habit of eating fruit of some 
 kind before breakfast ; let it always be placed on 
 the table, and let it constitute the prologue to 
 the meal proper ; but avoid it at night. To those 
 
66 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 who can make a choice I would recommend an 
 apple or an orange ; if you cannot choose, use 
 any fruit you can procure. Stewed prunes, apple 
 sauce, stewed rhubarb, rhubarb pie, grapes, 
 bananas, peaches, figs, dried apples, evaporated 
 peaches, sliced peaches, with cream and sugar, 
 strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. Take 
 your choice. If you do not like one, try another. 
 Remember one thing, no matter what you try. 
 Do not eat fruit for one day, and then, because 
 your bowels are not moved, get disgusted, say 
 there is no merit in its use, and give it up. Per- 
 severe ; you know that in everything success is the 
 reward of perseverance, and here this rule holds 
 good, as much so as in anything else. Cultivate 
 the habit, persevere in its use throughout your 
 life, remember the coaxing and the necessity for 
 regularity about which I have told you, and, ulti- 
 mately, success will be yours ; your bowels will be 
 regular, and your health much improved. 
 
 We are very funny people in this world ; what 
 great exertions we will undergo ; what laborious 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 67 
 
 hardships persons will sometimes undertake of 
 their own free will ; and yet if you were to en- 
 deavor to force these same people to do these 
 same things, they would rebel, and it would be 
 impossible to get them to do as you would de- 
 sire. And all through the perverseness of human 
 nature. What we desire to do is easily and 
 pleasantly done, while if some one else compels 
 us to do the same thing against our inclinations 
 it becomes irksome, and assuming the shape of 
 something we do not want to do, it becomes 
 hard labor. So with this very matter of eating 
 fruit. Nearly every one considers fruit as a 
 luxury, an article to be sought after ; but when 
 they come to look on it as something suggested to 
 them by another, as a medicine, I doubt not that 
 many of my readers will turn from its use with 
 distaste and cast it aside. Let me beg such 
 people to be more philosophical ; let me ask them 
 not to let my recommendation of its use alter the 
 flavor of the fruit for them. It will do them . 
 much good, and let me urge them to use it. A 
 
68 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 sufficient amount of water taken into the body is 
 a requisite of regular evacuations. Because, if 
 you do not have enough water to properly soften 
 and dilute the contents of your bowels, the mass 
 therein contained will be so hafd and dry that 
 your bowels will find it hard work to move it 
 along, and when it is finally expelled it will cause 
 you much pain ; because, not being properly di- 
 luted, the dead tissue has accumulated in a large, 
 dry, and hard mass, which so distends |he end of 
 your bowel in passing from it as to cause much 
 pain, sometimes amounting to positive agony. 
 You all know that if you attempt to swallow a 
 mouthful of food, without first allowing it to be 
 thoroughly mixed with the saliva in your mouth, 
 how it will stick in the throat, and how difficult 
 it will be to swallow it, and how much pain this 
 act will cause you. Well, I have already told 
 you that the bowels are but a prolongation, a 
 continuation of the throat, and if the matter in 
 the bowels be hard and dry, this same trouble and 
 pain in its movement along this tube will be ex- 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 69 
 
 perienced, only it will be increased, insomuch as 
 while the throat is only about a foot and a half 
 long, the bowel is about twenty-five feet. So if 
 your passages are large, hard, and dry, and cause 
 you much pain, and if you partake sparingly of 
 water, use it more freely. But be sure that in 
 relieving your constipation you do not produce 
 still greater ills ; in other words, be sure that the 
 water you use is pure and clean. If you have the 
 slightest reason to suspect its perfect purity, boil 
 and filter it before using. Some persons, and 
 particularly women, have a bad habit of drinking 
 tea, and these women will say that in this tea they 
 take water into their bodies ; so they do ; but in 
 the large majority of cases this tea will cause indi- 
 gestion, and, therefore, I cannot recommend its 
 use. 
 
 Some forms of alcoholic liquors will have a 
 tendency to move the bowels, such as beer, hock, 
 cider, perry, and so on, but their use will ulti- 
 mately make matters worse, because, by deranging 
 the liver and stomach, as they sooner or later 
 
70 CONSTIPATION, 
 
 will, they will only serve finally to confirm the 
 costive habit. 
 
 With some people milk is very constipating. 
 If it has this effect on you, and if it agrees with 
 you in other respects, try whether you cannot use 
 it and obviate the constipating effects by the 
 means I have indicated. If in spite of these 
 agents the milk continues to keep you costive, 
 you had better place it on the proscribed list. 
 All fresh and green vegetables should be freely 
 used by costive persons. The Almighty furnishes 
 to us, in them, nature's purgative, and their use 
 cannot be too highly commended. For many 
 hundred years the world prospered on their use, 
 and was surely not the loser, and most probably 
 the gainer. The cupidity and invention of man 
 has at last furnished to us the various canned 
 vegetables now offered for sale. They gratify the 
 palate in winter, when snow covers the ground 
 and fresh vegetables are a thing of the past, but I 
 am quite sure that at the same time they give rise 
 to and maintain many cases of constipation. 
 
PLAINLY TREATED. 71 
 
 Dr. Beale recommends, as very efficient in 
 many cases, a small cup of sweetened black coffee, 
 before rising. Try it. Let me sum up by quot- 
 ing from Dr. Beale's work. He says: "A 
 liberal allowance of meat and a too highly nutri- 
 tious diet favor constipation ; on the other hand, 
 various kinds of fruit and many soft vegetables 
 tend to prevent and relieve constipation." In 
 conclusion, let me tell you that if you are consti- 
 pated and have been so for years, and if, after 
 reading this little book, you come to realize and 
 appreciate the necessity of regular evacuations, 
 and make up your mind to use the means I have 
 indicated to procure them, if at first you fail, 
 try, and try, and try again ; but if you do not at 
 first succeed, do not get nervous and fidgety \ you 
 will make matters worse. If you have been cos- 
 tive for years, a few additional days of this habit 
 will not work you very much additional injury, 
 while serenity and evenness of mind will do much 
 to overcome it. To use my favorite simile : if 
 your stove becomes choked with ashes, it will do 
 
72 CONSTIPATION. 
 
 you no good to fret and fume about it ; but if you 
 quietly and calmly set to work and remove the 
 ashes, put in fresh coal, and apply the vital spark . 
 or match, your fire will soon be as good as ever. 
 So quietly and philosophically use the proper 
 means to remove your human ashes, and to se- 
 cure their daily and regular discharge, and your 
 vital fire will ultimately burn as bright as ever, 
 even though the flame may for years have been 
 smothered beneath a foul mass of rotten debris. 
 Hoping I may have made clear, even to the least 
 intelligent mind, the means by which they may 
 assure this daily regular and complete purifica- 
 tion, I give you this little book for what it is 
 worth. 
 
SELECT LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 FROM THE CATALOGUE OP 
 
 MR. PRESLEY BLAKISTON, 
 
 1012 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 FOR GENERAL AND SCIENTIFIC READERS. 
 
 &S* Any of the following books will be sent, postpaid, upon receipt of the 
 price, or they will be found in the stock of most booksellers throughout the 
 United States and Canada. 
 
 ON SLIGHT AILMENTS. Their Nature and Treatment. 
 By Lionel S. Beale, m.d. Large 12ino. Cloth. Price $1.75. 
 Among civilized nations a perfectly healthy individual seems to be the 
 exception rather than the rule ; almost every one has experienced very fre- 
 quent departures, of one kind or another, from the healthy state ; in most 
 instances these derangements are slight, though perhaps showing very 
 grave symptoms, needing a plain but quick remedy. 
 
 CONDENSATION OP CONTENTS. 
 
 The Tongue in Health and Slight Ailments, Appetite, Nausea, Thirst, 
 Hunger, Indigestion, its Nature and Treatment, Dyspepsia, Constipation, 
 and its Treatment, Diarrhoea, Vertigo, Giddiness, Biliousness, Sick Head- 
 ache, Neuralgia, Rheumatism, on the Feverish and Inflammatory State, 
 the Changes in Fever and Inflammation, Common Forms of Slight Inflam- 
 mation, Nervousness, Wakefulness, Restlessness, etc., etc. 
 
 OPINIONS. 
 
 41 It abounds in information and advice, and is written for popular use."— 
 Philadelphia Bulletin. 
 
 "Singularly clear and felicitous."— Sanitarian. 
 
 "A valuable work for the family library." -Boston Transcript. 
 
 " A thoroughly practical work for non-p ofessional as well as medical 
 readers."— Cincinnati Gazette. 
 
 i% It belongs to that class of works to which high commendation belongs " 
 —New Haven Palladium. 
 
 " A scholarly book, singularly free from all technicalities, and almost as 
 valuable to general readers as to members of the profession." — Chicago 
 Inter-Ocean. 
 
 "Clear, practical, and a valuable instructor and guide."— Baltimore Ga- 
 zette. 
 
 "The advice given as to treatment is so excellent, that no student or 
 young practitioner should neglect to read it."— Med. and Surgical Reporter. 
 
 " In a very important sense, a popular book."— Chicago Advance. 
 
 "An admirable treatise upon the minor ills which flesh is heir to."— 
 Sp ri n gf eld R epublican. 
 
 l 
 
2 Presley Blakistoiis 
 
 BRIGHT'S DISEASE. How Persons Threatened or Afflicted 
 with this Disease Ought to Live. By J. F. Edwards, m.d. l6mo, 96 
 pages. Cloth. Price 75 cents. 
 The author gives, in a readable manner, those instructions in relation 
 
 to Hygiene, Clothing, Eating, Bathing, etc., etc., which, when carried our, 
 
 will prolong the life of those suffering from this disease, and a neglect of 
 
 which costs annually many li^es. 
 
 WHAT IS SAID OF IT. 
 
 "Every one should read this excellent little volume, in which Dr. Ed- 
 wards describes and defines the disease." — Providence Journal. 
 
 " This little book is prepared, not in the interest of the doctor, but of the 
 sufferer." — Louisville Christian Observer. 
 
 " A very valuable work." — New York Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 "Plainly written, and ought to be of great use.'"— Philadelphia Public 
 Ledger. 
 
 " What should be done and avoided are clearly shown, and the informa 
 tion communicated is of general interest." — Albany Journal. 
 
 " Plain and straightforward."— Baltimore Sun. 
 
 " An admirable and much needed book." — Catholic Mirror, Baltimore. 
 
 "A remarkably able and useful treatise upon an obscure and vital sub- 
 ject." — North American. 
 
 "Should be read carefully by every one." — The Voice, Albany, N. Y. 
 
 "It encourages the sufferer as well as instructs him." — Congregationalist . 
 
 "An intelligent work." — Toledo Blade. 
 
 "A clear statement of some of the rules of life, which will insure the 
 longest lease of life, and the greatest measure of health. "—Providence 
 Press. 
 
 " A satisfactory treatise." — Indianapolis Sentinel. 
 
 "Of especial interest and importance, and should be universally known." 
 — Lutheran Observer. 
 
 " Will be eagerly welcomed by thousands of people. The malady is one 
 of a peculiarly insidious character, and it may be asserted with confidence 
 that this book will be a very valuable one for medical men as well as lav- 
 men. The book is written in good, plain English, and with clearness. "— 
 StoddarVs Review. 
 
 "Simple, practical directions that can be easily obeyed."— Bookseller 
 and Stationer. 
 
 "We are glad to call attention to this volume." — Southern Churchman. 
 
 "The considerations presented in this little volume are of the greatest 
 moment." — N. E. Journal of Education. 
 
 "This volume is especially commended to those in whose behalf it is 
 written." — Chicago Evening Journal. 
 
 "Contains a deal of useful information." — Rural New Yorker. 
 
 "Physicians, as well as laymen, will find the work interesting, and will 
 obtain many valuable hints as to the proper hygiene to be observed in this 
 disease." — Medical News, Cincinnati. 
 
 "To those for whom it is designed, -this manual can hardly fail to be a 
 God-send."— Bujfalo Courier. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 CONSTIPATION. Plainly Treated and Relieved without the 
 Use of Drugs. By Joseph F, Edwards. 16mo. Cloth. Price 75 cents, 
 
Select List of Book*. 
 
 THE MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN in Health and 
 Disease. 13y Mrs. Amie M. Hale, m.d. A book for Mothers. Second 
 Edition. 12mo. Cloth. Price 5- > cents. 
 
 THE PRESS COMMEND IT AS FOLLOWS I 
 
 " Altogether, it is a book which ought to be put into every baby basket, 
 even if some lace-trimmed finery is left out, and should certainly stand on 
 every nursery bureau." — Philadelphia Public Ledger. 
 
 14 Marked by good sense, simplicity and helpfulness in an unusual de- 
 gree." — Boston Journal. 
 
 "Admirable common-sense ad vice, which mothers would do well to have." 
 — Southern Churchman. 
 
 -'Contains invaluable instruction."— Evening News, Detroit. 
 
 "The importance of this book cannot be over estimated." — N. E. Journal 
 of Education. 
 
 a A work for mothers, full of wisdom."— Congregationalist. 
 
 "Ought to be the means of saving many a young Life." — Philadelphia 
 Inquirer. 
 
 " Abounds in valuable information."— Therapeutic Gazette. 
 
 " Emphatically a book tor mothers, and cannot fail to be useful to all 
 who read it."— In liana Farmer. 
 
 " Admirably simple, clear, sensible, and safe in its teachings."— Friends' 
 Review. 
 
 " It should be upon every household table." — Nashville Journal of Med. 
 and Surg. 
 
 BIBLE HYGIENE ; or, Health Hints. By a Physician. This 
 book has been written, first, to impart in a popular and condensed form 
 the elements of Hygiene. Second, to show how varied and important 
 are the Health Hints contained in the Rible, and third, to prove that 
 the secondary trendings of modern philosophy run in a parallel direction 
 with the primary light of the Bible. 12mo. Cloth. Price $1.25. 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 11 The anonymous English author of this volume has written a decidedly 
 readable and wholesome book." — Philadelphia Press. 
 
 •'The scientific treatment of the subject is quite abreast of the present 
 day, and is so clear and free from unnecessary technicalities that readers 
 of all classes may peruse it with satisfaction and advantage."— Edinburgh 
 Medical Journal. 
 
 HEALTH AND HEALTHY HOMES. A Guide to Personal 
 and Domestic Hygiene. By George Wilson, m.a., m.d., Medical Officer 
 of Health. Edited by Jos. G-. Richardson, Professor of Hygiene at 
 the University of Pennsylvania. 12mo. Cloth. 314 pp. Price $1.50. 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 VI. Exercise, Recreation and 
 
 Training, 187 
 
 VII. Home and Its Surround- 
 ings, Drainage, Warm- 
 ing, etc., 221 
 VHI. Infectious Diseases and 
 
 their Prevention, 269 
 
 "A most useful and, in every way, acceptable book. 1 '— New York Herald. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. Introductory. 
 11. The Human Body, 
 
 III. Causes of Disease, 
 
 IV. Food and Diet, 
 V. Cleanliness and 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 17 
 
 33 
 
 66 
 
 119 
 
 Cloth- 
 
 
 mg, 
 
 
 169 
 
Presley Blahiston's 
 
 THE AMERICAN HEALTH PRIMERS. Edited by W. W. 
 Keen, m.d. Bound in Cloth. Price 50 cents each. 
 The Twelve Volumes, in Handsome Cloth Box, $6.00. 
 
 I. Hearing and How to Keep It. With illustrations. By 
 
 Chas. H. Burnett, m.d., of Philadelphia, Aurist to the Presby- 
 terian Hospital, etc. 
 II. Long Iiife, and How to Reach It. By J. G-. Richardson, 
 
 m.d., of Philadelphia, Professor of Hygiene in the University of 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 III. The Summer and Its Diseases. By James C. Wilson, m.d., 
 
 of Philadelphia, Lecturer on Physical Diagnosis in Jefferson 
 
 Medical College. 
 IV. Eyesight, and How to Care for It. With Illustrations. 
 
 By George C Harlan, m.d., of Philadelphia, Surgeon to the 
 
 Wills (Eye) Hospital. 
 V. The Throat and the Voice. With illustrations. By J. 
 
 Solis Cohen, m.d., of Philadelphia, Lecturer on Diseases of the 
 
 Throat in Jefferson Medical College, etc. 
 VI. The Winter and Its Dangers. By Hamilton Osgood, m.d., 
 
 of Boston, Editorial Staff Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. 
 VII. The Mouth «nd the Teeth. With illustrations. By J. W. 
 
 White, m.d., d.d.s., of Philadelphia, Editor of the Dental 
 
 Cosmos. 
 VIII. Brain Work and Overwork. By H. C.Wood, Jr., m.d., 
 
 of Philadelphia, Clinical Professor of Nervous Diseases in the 
 
 University of Pennsylvania, etc. 
 IX. Our Homes. With illustrations. By Henry Hartshorne, 
 
 m.d., of Philadelphia, formerly Professor of Hygiene in the 
 
 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 X. The Skin in Health and Disease. By L. D. Bulkley, 
 m.d., of New York, Physician to the Skin Department of the 
 Demilt Dispensary and of the New York Hospital. 
 XI. Sea Air and Sea Bathing'. By John H. Packard, m.d., of 
 
 Philadelphia, Surgeon to the Episcopal Hospital. 
 XII. School and Industrial Hygiene. By D. F. Lincoln, m.d., 
 of Boston, Mass., Chairman Department of Health, American 
 Social Science Association. 
 
 This series of American Health Primers is prepared to diffuse as widely 
 and cheaply as possible, among all classes, a knowledge of the elementary 
 facts of Preventive Medicine, and the bearings and applications of the 
 latest and best researches in every branch of Medical and Hygienic Sci- 
 ence. They are not intended (save incidentally) to assist in curing disease, 
 but to teach people how to take care of themselves, their children, pupils, 
 employe's, etc. 
 
 They are written from an American standpoint, with especial reference 
 to our Climate, Sanitary Legislation and Modes of Life ; and in these re- 
 spects we differ materially from other nations. 
 
 The subjects selected are of vital and practical importance in every-day 
 life and are treated in as popular a style as is consistent with their nature. 
 Each volume, if the subject calls for it, is fully illustrated, so that the text 
 may be clearly and readily understood by any one heretofore entirely ig- 
 norant of the structure and functions of the body. The object being to 
 furnish the general or unscientific reader, in a compact form and at a low 
 
Select List of Books. 5 
 
 price, reliable guides for the prevention of disease and the preservation of 
 both body and mind in a healthy state. 
 
 The authors have been selected with great care, and on account of special 
 fitness, each for his subject, by reason of its previous careful study, either 
 privately or as public teachers. 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " As each little volume of this series has reached our hands we have 
 found each in turn practical and well-written." — New York School Journal. 
 
 "This is volume No. 5 of the 'American Health Primers,' each of which 
 The Inter-Ocean has had the pleasure to commend. In their practical 
 teachings, learning, and sound sense, these volumes are worthy of all the 
 compliments they have received. They teach what every man and woman 
 should know, and yet what nine-tenths of the intelligent class are ignorant 
 of, or at best, have but a smattering knowledge of."— Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 "The series of American Health Primers, edited by Dr. Keen, of Phila- 
 delphia, and published by Presley Blakiston, deserves hearty commenda- 
 tion. These handbooks of practical suggestion are prepared by men whose 
 professional competence is beyond question, and, for the most part, by 
 those who have made the subject treated the specific study of their lives. 
 Such was the little manual on 'Hearing,' compiled by a well-known aurist, 
 and we now have a companion treatise, in Eyesight and How to Care for It, 
 by Dr. G-eorge C. Harlan, surgeon to the Wills Eye Hospital. The 
 author has contrived to make his theme intelligible and even interesting 
 to the young by a judicious avoidance of technical language, and the 
 occasional introduction of historical allusion. His simple and felicitous 
 method of handling a difficult subject is conspicuous in the discussion 
 of the diverse optical defects, both congenital and acquired, and 
 of those injuries and diseases by which the eyesight may be impaired or lost. 
 We are of the opinion that this little work will prove of special utility to 
 parents and all persons intrusted with the care of the eyes." — New York Sun. 
 
 "The series of American Health Primers (now entirely completed) 
 is presenting a large body of sound advice on various subjects, in a form 
 which is at once attractive and serviceable. The several writers seem to 
 hit the happy mean between the too technical and the too popular. They 
 advise in a general way, without talking in such a manner as to make their 
 readers begin to feel their own pulses, or to tinker their bodies without 
 medical advice." — Sunday-school Times. 
 
 " Brain Work and Overwork. By Dr. H. C. Wood, Clinical Professor 
 of Nervous diseases in the University of Pennsylvania. This is another 
 volume of the admirable "Health Primers," published by Presley Blakis- 
 ton. To city people this will prove the most valuable work of the series. 
 It gives, ina condensed and practical form, just that information which is 
 of such vital importance to sedentary men. It treats the whole subject of 
 brain work and overwork, of rest, and recreation, and exercise in a plain 
 and practical way, and yet with the authority of thorough and scientific 
 knowledge. No man who values his health and his working power should 
 fail to supply himself with this valuable little book."— State Gazette, Tren- 
 ton, N. J. 
 
6 Presley Blakistoivs 
 
 WHAT TO DO FIRST in Accidents and Poisoning. By Charles 
 W. Dulles, m.d. Illustrated. 18mo. Cloth. Price 50 cents. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Whoever has seen how invaluable, in the presence of an accident, is the 
 man or woman with a cool head, a steady hand, and some knowledge of 
 what is best to be done, will not fail to appreciate the desirability of possess- 
 ing these qualifications. To have them in an emergency one must acquire 
 them before it arises, and it is with the hope of aiding any who wish to 
 prepare themselves for such demands upon their own resources that the 
 following suggestions have been put together. 
 
 OPINIONS. 
 
 " Of special practical value, and we commend it to all."— Lutheran Ob- 
 server. 
 
 44 Ought to be in everybody's hands/' — Times , Philadelphia. 
 
 " Its usefulness entitles it to a wide and permanent circula ion." — Boston 
 Gazette 
 
 u Just the thing for an emergency." — Portland Transcript. 
 
 " Of great practical value to the public." — Wisconsin State Journal. 
 
 '• A complete guide for sudden emcgencies." — Philadelphia Ledger. 
 
 "So plain and sensible that it ought to be introduced inio every female 
 seminary." — Evening Chronicle, Pittsburgh. 
 
 "The suggestions are of priceless value."— The Traveler, Boston. 
 
 44 The book is. invaluable." — Providence Press. 
 
 44 A valuable addition to the domestic library. "—Boston Transcript. 
 
 44 Merits an extensive sale." — St. Louis Courier of Medicine. 
 
 44 This is an exceedingly useful and well arranged little book."— North 
 American. 
 
 " The instructions of this little book are necessary and timely/'— Christian 
 Secretary. 
 
 " Contains a variety of practical suggestions that no household can afford 
 to do without." — Contributor, Boston. 
 
 EYESIGHT, GOOD AND BAD. The Preservation ofVision. 
 By Robert Brudenel Carter, m.d., f.r.c.s. With many explanatory 
 illustrations. 12mo. Cloth. Price 11.50. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A large portion of the time of every ophthalmiJ surgeon is occupied, day 
 after day, in repeating to successive patients precepts and injunctions 
 which ought to be universally known and understood. The following 
 pagps contain an endeavor to make these precepts and injunctions, and 
 the reasons for them, plainly intelligible to those who are mos t concerned in 
 their observance. 
 
 WHAT IS THOUGHT OP IT. 
 
 4s A very valuable book, and should be in everybody's hands."— North 
 American. 
 
 44 A valuable book for all who are interested in the best use and preser- 
 vation o£ the vision."— N. E. Journal of Education. 
 
 44 A compact volume, full of information to all classes of people."— Book- 
 seller and Stationer. 
 
 • 4 A comprehensive treatise, well calculated to educate the public."— 
 Kansas City Review. 
 
 44 Gives excellent advice." — Chicago Journal. 
 
 44 To teachers particularly the book is of interest and importance."— 
 Educational Weekly. 
 
Select List of Books, 
 
 ON HEADACHES. Their Causes and Cure. By Henry G. 
 Wright, m.d. Ninth thousand. 16mo. Cloth. Price 50 cents. 
 
 ON DEAFNESS, GIDDINESS and Noises in the Head. By 
 Ed. Woakes, m.d. Illustrated. 2d edition. 12mo. Cloth. Price $2.50. 
 
 HYGIENE AND SANITARY SCIENCE. A Complete Hand- 
 book. 4th revised edition. Containing chapters on Public Health, 
 Food, Air, Ventilation and Warming Water, Water Analysis, Dwell- 
 ings, Hospitals. Removal, Purification, Utilization of Sewage and Ef- 
 fects on PublicHealth, Drainage. Epidemics. Duties of Medical Officers 
 of Health, etc. By Geo. Wilson, m.a., m.d. 12rao. Cloth. Price $2.75. 
 u A sound book, by a very competent writer."— London Lancet. 
 
 WATER ANALYSIS For Sanitary Purposes with Hints for 
 the Interpretation of Results. Bv E. Frankland, ph.d , d.c.l. Illus- 
 trated. 12mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 
 "The name of the author is a sufficient testimonial to its accuracy and its 
 
 practical value." — Boston Journal of Chemistry. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 HOW TO TEACH CHEMISTRY. Beine Six Lectures to 
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 THE ART OF PERFUMERY. The Methods of Obtaining 
 the Odors of Plants and Instruction for the Manufacture of Perfumery, 
 Dentifrices, Soap, etc. etc. By G-. W. Septimus Piesse. 4th edition, 
 enlarged. 366 illustrations. 8vo. Cloth. Price $5.5». 
 
 POTABLE WATER. How to Form a Judgment, on the Suit- 
 ableness of water for Drinking Purposes. By Charles Ekin. 12mo. Price 
 75 cents. 
 
 HEALTH RESORTS of Europe, Asia and Africa. The result 
 of the Author's own observations during several years of health travel 
 in many lands. By T. JVL Madden, m.d. 8vo. Cloth. Price $2.50. 
 
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Presley Blakistorfs Select List 
 
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