374 THE NEW ZEALAND FAMILY HERB DOCTOR. 
or four times a day; children. according to age. The digestive 
food should be taken, and if the case 1s a severe one, a slippery 
elm injection, with half ateaspoonful of the astringent powder, 
should be given ~_ Let the food be of alight and mucilaginous 
kind. The blessings of those who have been ready to pensh 
have come upon us for our successful treatment of these bowel 
complaints. 
FALLING OF THE BOWELS. 
This condition is often the cause of chronic diarrhoea, and 
dysentery. It is caused by a lax condition of the sphinctre 
muscle of the anus, and it is cured by a removal of the cause, 
and the application of astringents. An American gives this as 
a remedy: Return the gut, and select a small round piece of 
alum ; melt the angles off it in warm water; push up till it has 
passed the sphincter : it will dissolve. Two o1 three applications 
will suffice. In some old patients 1t may be needful to geta 
truss. 
NIGHTMARE (Incvusus) 
May also be included in diseases of digestion, as it is generally 
found in connection with dyspepsia The sympathy between 
the stomach and brain is a recognised fact which may account 
for the unnatural dreams which accompany the affection. The 
dreamer imagines himself falling down a precipice, about to 
be torn by wild beasts, or an impossibility to breathe. There 
is a semi-consciousness with it which makes one try to awaken 
and cry out. The cause, weak stomach, nervousness, great 
anxiety, Constipation, eating late suppers. eating indigestible 
food, &c. The subject is generally lying on the back Inthe 
effort to awaken, the sufferer groans and often rolis out on the 
floor. People think lightly of these symptoms, but they are 
sometimes fearfully distressing, and we are inclined to the 
opinion that nightmare is often the cause of death in those 
found dead in their beds. We have often felt that if we had 
not wakened when we did, death would have resulted. To 
prevent, avoid all excesses, take a vegetable diet, a cup of 
composition at bed-time, small doses of the stomach bitters, 
