ons in the colon, how could two tablespoonfuls of mineral oil
be a sufficient lubricant after being mixed with liquid and solid food
through many feet of the intestinal tract?

=An Adaptable Apparatus.= The lining of the intestines has plenty of
secretions to take care of its function. It is as well adapted to the
vicissitudes of life as are the other parts of the body. The muscular
coat is no more liable to paralysis or spasm than are the voluntary
muscles. As the skin adapts itself to all waters and all weathers,
and as the lungs adjust themselves to varying air-pressures, so the
intestinal wall makes ready adaptation to any common-sense demands,
adjusting itself with ease to an athletic or a sedentary life, and to
the normal variations of diet. What man has eaten throughout the
centuries man may eat to-day. If you will but believe it, your
intestines will make no more objection to white bread, blackberries,
and cheese, along with all other ordinary articles of food, than the
skin makes to varying kinds of water. Naturally, the suggested idea
that a food will constipate tends to carry itself out to fulfilment
and to prevent the call to stool from rising to the level of
consciousness; but the real force lies not in the food but in the
suggestion.

=The Bran Fad.= It is when we try to improve on the normal human diet
that we really insult the body. He who leaves off eating nourishing
white bread and takes to bran muffins is simply cheating his body.
Bran has a small food value, but the human body is not made to extract
it. Not only does bran fail to give us any nourishment itself, but it
lessens the power of the intestines to care for other food.[55] The
fad for bran is based on the well-known fact that we need a certain
quantity of bulk in order to stimulate the intestinal wall to normal
peristalsis. We do need bulk, but not more than we naturally get from
a normal and varied diet including a reasonable amount of fruit and
vegetables.

[Footnote 55: See an article entitled "Bread and Bran," _Journal of
American Medical Association_, July 5, 1919, p. 36.]

It is true that the suggestion of the efficacy of bran, dates,
spinach, or any other food is frequently quite sufficient to give
relief, temporarily, just as massage, manipulation of the vertebrae,
the surgeon's knife, or mineral oil may be enough to carry the
conviction of power to a suggestible individual. But who wants to take
his suggestions in such inconveni