722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



oines ; costivciiess, as an after-effect of pleuritic affections, Avill soon 

 yield to fresh air and a vegetable diet. 



Wonns. Intestinal parasites are symptoms rather than a cause of 

 defective digestion, and drastic medicines (calomel, Glauber's-salt, etc.) 

 are merely palliatives ; even a change of diet may fail to afford perma- 

 nent relief if the general mode of life favors a costive condition of 

 the bowels. Like maggots, maw-worms seem to thrive only on jDutres- 

 cent substances, on accumulated ingesta in a state of self-decomposi- 

 tion, and disappear as soon as exercise, cold fresh air, and a frugal diet 

 have reestablished the functional vigor of the digestive organs. 



Diarrhoea. An abnormal looseness of the bowels is an effort of 

 Nature to rid the stomach of some irritating substance, and suggests 

 the agency of a dietetic abuse, either in quantity or in quality. An 

 excessive quantum even of the healthiest food will purge the bowels 

 like a drastic poison, unless the alimentary wants and consequent- 

 ly the assimilative abilities of the system have been increased by 

 active exercise. On the hunting-grounds of the upper Alps, an Aus- 

 trian sportsman can assimilate a quantity of meat which the kitchen 

 artists of the best Vienna restaurant could not have foisted upon the 

 stomach of an indolent burgher. Dysentery medicines can be entirely 

 dispensed with if one can get the patient to try the effect of Nature's 

 two specifics fasting and pedestrian exercise. Combined they will 

 only fail when oj^iates have produced an inflammatory condition of 

 the bowels, in which case a grape- or water-ciu'e must precede the 

 more radical remedies. The languor of dysentery is always combined 

 with a fretful restlessness, and should not be mistaken for the exhaus- 

 tion that calls for repose and food : the patient is safe if we can fa- 

 tigue him into actual sleepiness, or anything like a genuine aj^petite ; 

 when the digestive organs announce the need of nourishment, they 

 can be relied upon to find ways and means to retain it. 



Constipation. A slight stringency of the bowels should never be 

 interfered with ; in summer-time close stools are consistent with a 

 good appetite and general bodily vigor. Aperient medicines provoke 

 a morbid activity of the bowels, followed by a costiveness that differs 

 from a summer constipation as insomnia differs from a transient sleep- 

 lessness. In England and the United States the use of laxative drugs 

 has repeatedly become epidemic and in its consequences a true na- 

 tional misfortune;* and a sad majority of otherwise intelligent par- 

 ents are still afflicted with the idea that children have to " take some- 

 thing " in other words, that their bowels have to be convulsed with 



" " If tlic bowels become constipated, they <ire dosed with pills, with black draughts, 

 with brimstone and treacle, and medicines of that class, almost ad hifinitum. Ojjcning 

 medicines, by constant repetition, lose their effects, and therefore require to be made 

 stronger and stronger, until at length the strongest will scarcely act at all ; . . . the pa- 

 tients become dull and listless, requiring daily doses of physic until they almost live on 

 medicine." (II. Chavasse, " Advice to a Jlothcr," p. 388.) 



