HYGIENE OF FOOD AND FEEDING 155 



poisoning. The most common symptoms of constipation (the 

 clogging of the bowels with refuse) are the following: 



1. Headaches, especially the kind of headache that seems to hammer 

 at your temples when you bend over. 



2. The "blues" — a feeling of general dissatisfaction and grouch when 

 you know of nothing to give you cause for dissatisfaction. 



3. Drowsiness, in spite of plenty of sleep within a few hours. 



4. A certain ''tired feeling" when you have hardly done enough work 

 to account for the tiredness. 



5. Indigestion and loss of appetite. 



6. A coated or "furred" tongue. 



There are many headache powders on the market, but they 

 never cure people of their trouble. They generally depress the 

 action of the heart so that the circulation is lowered, and you 

 do not jeel the pain caused by the disturbance of these bowel 

 poisons. The poisons, however, are still there, and more are 

 being produced, whether you have a headache or not. The thing 

 to do is to remove the cause of the trouble, not merely hide the 

 damage from yourself. In a case of acute constipation one may 

 obtain temporary relief by the use of a physic or an enema, but 

 these should never be used as a regular thing. 



Our food should have enough bulk to leave a considerable 

 amount of undigested material in the intestine. This bulk, ob- 

 tained chiefly from coarse vegetables, such as cabbage, lettuce, 

 and turnips, is sometimes called roughage, from the idea that 

 this mass of coarse cellulose sweeps out the bowels. There 

 should also be plenty of juicy fruit, fresh or stewed, for the 

 laxative property of the salts and other substances. 



Since the chief cause of constipation is neglect of the bowels, 

 the only real cure is the establishing of regular habits of empty- 

 ing them. Mothers often try to get infants into regular habits, 

 but many of them neglect the children when they are a little 

 older. If regular habits are not established early, they are 

 likely never to be fixed at all. It is certain that hundreds of 

 thousands of people in this country suffer from constipation, 

 and that there is no drug or medicine that will cure the disorder. 



