Carefully cooked and "concentrated", easily digested and "pre-digested" foods contain little residue; every meal should contain some indigestible matter to stimulate the intestines. Brown bread, porridge, lettuce, cress, apples and coarse vegetables are all good for this purpose, but if taken too freely may cause heartburn and flatulence. Meat, milk, fish, eggs and most patent foods have not enough waste. Boiled milk is very constipating.
Purgatives, injections and medicines, alone, are useless, for the bowel becomes still more insensitive to natural calls under the artificial stimulation of drugs, on which it becomes so entirely dependent that without their aid it will not act.
It may be necessary to clean out the bowel by an enema.
Make a lather with clean warm water and plain soap, and fill the enema syringe (a half-pint size is useful). Smear the nozzle with vaseline, lean forward and insert into the anus, pointing a little to the left. Press the bulb, withdraw the nozzle, retain the liquid a few moments and a desire to go to stool will be felt.
A simpler plan is to buy glycerin suppositories. One is inserted into the anus and acts like an injection. It must be clearly understood that these are emergency measures.
If internal piles come down at stool, do not allow them to remain and get engorged with blood. See that your hands are scrupulously clean, and your nails closely cut and free from dirt; then moisten the middle finger with a little vaseline taken to the lavatory for the purpose, and gently return the hæmorrhoids, sitting down for a few minutes to retain them.
A mild purge may be taken once a week with advantage. Glauber's Salts (Sodium Sulphate), Cascara Sagrada, and liquid paraffin are all good, while Castor Oil Globules are suited for children.
For flatulence, take a 10-minim capsule of Terebine after meals, or charcoal, either as French Rusks ("Biscols Fraudin") or a teaspoonful of powdered charcoal between meals. One drop of creosote on a lump of sugar, peppermint water, and sal volatile may also be used. Sufferers should toast bread, and use sugar sparingly.
Patent medicines almost invariably contain a brisk aperient.