312 DIET FOR CONSTIPATION. 



tea, arrow-root or other nourishment, instead of stimulating the 

 patient back to health, will only arrest reaction and send him back 

 to death. It is egregious folly to attempt to force the exhausted 

 alimentary organs to perform a physical impossibility, viz., prema- 

 turely digest rood. None is required and stimulants are worse than 

 useless. Ice may be given freely, to be dissolved in the mouth or 

 swallowed; iced water is also refreshing; enemas of warm milk often 

 repeated are beneficial. When the favorable symptoms are decided, 

 farinaceous preparations may be given, but only in small quantities. 

 In due time broths and soups may follow, but great care must be 

 taken not to arrest recovery by injudicious feeding. 



DIET FOB CONSTIPATION. 



By constipation is meant the condition due to a collection or 

 impaction of excrement in the rectum the residuum of the various 

 processes concerned in the nourishment of the body occasioning 

 irregularity in the evacuations from the bowels, increase in their 

 consistence and often a sense of fullness and tension in the bowels 

 and surrounding parts. It is that which is consequent on the im- 

 perfect discharge of intestinal function, which attends derangement 

 of the whole system, and not of the intestinal canal alone. 



In very many cases costiveness depends on some faulty habit 

 in the patient the regulation of which will probably suffice to re- 

 move the inconvenience. Sedentary habits, drinking too much 

 astringent wine, such as port or Burgundy, or black tea, dissipation, 

 the exclusive use of white bread, taking food too dry and destitute 

 of succulent vegetables, neglect of the calls of nature and the habit- 

 ual use of aperient medicine, are faults which induce constipation. 

 If these be corrected the disorder will generally disappear. But 

 more precise information may be given with regard to food, for 

 costiveness may to a great extent be treated by judicious dieting of 

 the patient. 



All superfluous food that has the property of solidifying the 

 excretions and arresting evacuation must be relinquished. Meals 

 should be taken with regularity three times a day; animal food eaten 

 sparingly ; succulent, juicy vegetables and ripe fruits freely. As a 

 rule persons eat too much and too often. If the stomach be over- 

 loaded the food will be imperfectly digested ; there will consequently 

 be a larger quantity of feces and thus the bowels will be overloaded 

 also. Franklin's rule, " to leave off with an appetite," is a good 

 one. By doing this, in ten minutes the appetite will have departed. 

 Coarse, Scotch oatmeal -porridge, made in the Scotch way, by add- 

 ing the meal gradually to the water till thick enough, and eaten 

 with molasses, should form part of the breakfast. Brown bread 

 should be preferred to white. It should not be eaten new ; it may 

 be taken for a fortnight at a time, and then temporarily changed 



