nd one grand motto as to the "safe and sure" cure. They
have always prescribed remedies for this malady on the theory of portal
congestion and hepatic derangement, and hence their supreme motto:
"_Physic! Physic!! Physic!!!_"

The layman naturally adopted the theory and the motto of his medical
advisers; hence in his self-medication and also under advice he
consumes such vast quantities of purgative nostrums.

I have just received some medical literature beginning with the usual
salutation--"Dear Doctor"--setting forth a new and remarkable theory of
the cause, and an original motto for the cure, of constipation. Its
authors have discovered that the "rectal nerve-tissues" are hungry,
torpid, anemic, and to overcome the "atony" they must be "_Fed! Fed!!
Fed!!!_"

"The greatest of physical ills in America," we are informed, "is
digestive torpor or semi-paralysis, originally induced by a kind of
starvation of the intestinal nerve-tissues. One of its most prevalent
forms is constipation," caused by "local torpor or semi-paralysis,
dependent upon an anemic condition of the nerve-tissues of the rectal
region." By "feeding directly" the limpid, bedraggled rectum and colon,
they receive their "appropriate nutriment, by which comes added
vigor,"--the nutriment the stomach and the rest of the system had
failed to furnish on account of constipation, excessive fermentation,
indigestion and auto-infection.

To overcome this "atony" of two or more feet of the lower bowel, a
little "nutritious" suppository, weighing twenty grains, is a
"specific." It is claimed to cure chronic auto-infection and the
spasmodic occlusion of the lower bowel! The excessive activity of all
the region invaded by the chronic inflammation and the local irritation
are perpetuated by such "feeding" instead of allayed! Does it not stand
to reason that there is already too much activity, and that when the
irritability reaches a certain stage diarrhea or looseness of the
bowels must result? Twenty grains prescribed once a day to nourish an
organ (the rectum) six to eight inches in length, and from one and a
half to two and a half inches in diameter! When for two to three feet
the lower bowel requires nourishment, a suppository night and morning
is prescribed! However, the new treatment has the merit of some
consistency between the diagnosis and the treatment, notwithstanding
both are wrong.

Chronic inflammation of the lower bowel causes, as I have pointed ou