d is the custom! Our next-door
neighbor, the doctor, waits till we are really thin, and then begins to
feed and grow fat on our ills! In our day, through the continuous
process of self-poisoning we take on no flesh from puny, peaked
childhood, or we insidiously lose what little flesh we had, and when
our bones are well exposed, become alarmed, realize that we are sick,
rush for the doctor, and dispossess ourselves of our spare cash.

Very frequently, as stated in the first chapter, auto-infection begins
in infancy and slowly but steadily progresses, but it may not be before
adult age is reached and one or more organs are seriously diseased that
it becomes apparent to all. The vital round of the alternate
building-up and breaking-down of the system has been going on
unceasingly during these years of increasing infection, but prematurely
the balance between up and down is lost in favor of down; the
building-up process becoming feebler, slower, and the breaking-down
process quicker, easier. What can the inevitable outcome be but
_emaciation_ and _anemia_, and all their attendant suffering and
consequences? It is the superabundance of vitality in the growing child
that retards (inhibits) the morbid changes going on in the blood and
tissues of the system; but the process is all the more insidious by
being thus restrained, and its very subtlety and stealth beguile us all
into fancied security: parents, friends, physicians--all are deceived.

As stated in a previous chapter, the first unwelcome visitor, in
infancy, is inflammation of the integument and mucous membrane of the
anal orifice, invited by the uncleanliness involved in the use of
diapers; and this visitor takes up its residence slowly along several
inches of the lower bowel. Its first symptoms are likely to be
constipation, flatulency, colic, indigestion, bacterial and other
poisons, occasionally diarrhea, and the usual general disturbance of
the system as above detailed. It is admitted by all authors that
inflammation of the anus, rectum, etc., is by far the most common
disease that afflicts mankind at all ages; and I maintain that the
natural result of such inflammation is a more or less extensive
occlusion of the lower bowel, which in turn involves an undue retention
of the feces, and thus we have the foul intestinal canal and stomach
called gastric and intestinal indigestion.

The wrong treatment of constipation, diarrhea, indigestion and
auto-intoxication up