The other element in the modern situation as regards the failure of intestinal function is the lack of fluids. People who live indoors are not tempted to take so much water as those who work outside and yet in our modern, steam-heated houses they often need more. Our heating systems take much more water from us than the former methods of heating. The result is seen in our furniture that comes apart from dryness and in our books and other things which crack and deteriorate. Something of the same thing happens to human beings unless they supply sufficient fluids. For this it is necessary deliberately to make up the mind, which always means the will, to consume five or six glasses of water between meals and especially to take one on rising in the morning and another on going to bed. This should not be hot and above all not lukewarm water, but fresh cold water which stimulates peristalsis. The creation of a habit is needed in the matter or it will be neglected. I have sometimes given patients some harmless drug, like a lithium salt, that was to be taken three or four times a day in a full glass of [{224}] water, in order to be sure that they would take the water. They were willing to take the medicine but I could not be assured that without it they would drink the amount of water that I counselled.
Above all, a regular habit of going to the toilet at a definite time every day must be created. Nothing is so important. In little children, even from their very early years, such a habit can be established; it is only necessary to put them on their chairs at certain times in the day and the desired result will follow. Adults are merely children of a larger growth in this matter, and the habit of going regularly is all-important. A little patience is needed, though there should be no forcing, and after a time, a very satisfactory habit can be established in this manner. It seems almost impossible to many people that anything so simple should prove to be remedial for what to them for a time seemed so serious a disturbance of health, but only a comparatively short trial of the method will be sufficient to demonstrate its value. A book or newspaper may be taken with one, or Lord Chesterfield's advice to learn a page of Horace which may afterwards be sent down as an offering to Libitina, the goddess of secret [{225}] places, may be followed, but the mind must not be diverted too much from the business in hand, and the will must be afforded an opportunity to exert its power.
It is true that the muscular elements of the intestines consist of unstriped muscles and that they are involuntary, and yet experience and observation have shown that the will has a certain indirect influence even over involuntary muscle. The heart, though entirely involuntary in its regular activities, can be deeply influenced by the will and the emotions, as the words encouraging and discouraging, or the equivalent Saxon words heartening and disheartening, make very clear. Undoubtedly the peristaltic functions of the intestines can be encouraged by a favorable attitude of the will towards them.
Above all, it is important that the anxious solicitude which a great many people have and foster sedulously with regard to the effect of even slight disturbances of intestinal functions should be overcome. We have discussed this question in the chapter on dreads and need only say here that the delay of a few hours in the evacuation of the bowels or even the missing entirely of an intestinal movement for a full day occasionally, will [{226}] usually not disturb the general health to any notable extent, and that the symptoms so often attributed to these slight disturbances of intestinal function are much more due to the solicitude about them than to any physical effect. There are a great many people whose intestinal functions are quite sluggish and whose movements occur only every second day or so, who are in perfectly good health and strength and have no symptoms attributable to any absorption of supposed toxic materials from the intestines. Indeed, in recent years, the idea of intestinal auto-toxemia has lost more and more in popularity for it has come to be recognized that the symptoms attributed to this condition are due in a number of cases to serious organic disease in other parts of the body, and in a great many cases to functional nervous troubles and to the psycho-neuroses, especially the oversolicitude with regard to the intestines. The will is needed then for intestinal function to regulate the diet, to increase the quantity of fluid, to secure regular habits and to eliminate worry and anxiety which interferes with intestinal peristalsis. There are but very few cases that will not yield to this discipline of the will when properly and persistently tried.
CHAPTER XVI
THE WILL AND THE HEART
| "For what I will, I will, and there an end." |
| Two Gentlemen of Verona |
The heart is the primum movens, the first tissue of the body that moves of itself in the animal organism, doing so rhythmically and of course continuously before the nervous system develops in the embryo. This spontaneous activity would seem to place it quite beyond the control of the will, as of course it is, so far as the continuance of its essential activity goes, but there is probably no organ that is so much influenced by the emotions and comes indirectly under the influence of the will as the heart. There are a series of expressions in practically all languages which chronicle this fact. We talk about the encouragement and discouragement or in Saxon terms that are exactly equivalent to the French words, heartening and disheartening of the individual. At moments of panic the [{228}] heart can be felt to be depressed, while at times when resolve is high there is a sense of well-being in connection with the firm action of the heart that flows over into the organism and makes everything seem easy of accomplishment.
There are a number of heart conditions that depend for their existence and continuance on a sense of discouragement, that is oversolicitude with regard to the heart. If something calls attention to that organ, the fact that it is so important for life and health and that anything the matter with it may easily prove serious, will sometimes precipitate a feeling of panic that is reflected in the heart and adds to the symptoms noted. The original disturbing heart sensation may be due to nothing more than some slight distention of the stomach by gas, or by a rather heavy meal, but once the dread of the presence of a heart condition of some kind comes over the individual, all the subjective feelings in the cardiac region are emphasized and the discouragement that results further disturbs both heart and patient.
Palpitation of the heart is scarcely more than a solicitous noting of the fact that the heart is beating. In certain cases, under the [{229}] stress of emotion, the heart beat-rate may be faster than normal, but in a number of people who complain of palpitation, no rapid heart action is noted. What has happened is that something having called particular attention to the heart, the beating of the organ gets above the threshold of consciousness and then continues to be noted whenever attention is given it. This is of itself quite sufficient to cause a sense of discomfort in the heart region and there may be, owing to the solicitude about the organ, a great deal of complaint.