"The above local measures apply particularly to children after the eighteenth month. They may be used earlier, however, following out the diet along the lines laid down for bottle-fed children who suffer from constipation. In very young children a smaller amount of oil should be used, never more than two ounces, usually one ounce is all that is required. When the oil treatment is under way, whatever the age of the patient, laxative drugs should not be given."
CHAPTER XXIII
CONSTIPATION IN WOMEN
Chief Cause of Constipation in Women—Constipation a Cause of Domestic Unhappiness—The Requirements of Good Health—The Cost of Constipation—Constipation and Social Exigencies—One of the Important Duties of Mothers—Constipation and Diseases of Women—Constipation is Always Harmful—Constipation and Pregnancy—Explanation of Incomplete Constipation—Causes of Constipation—Negligence—Lack of Exercise—Lack of Water—Lack of Bulk in the Food Taken—Abuse of Cathartic Drugs and Aperient Waters—Overeating—Treatment of Constipation in Women.
It has been stated that constipation is almost universal among the women of America. It is a fact that very few American women enjoy, to a reasonable degree, a permanently satisfactory bowel condition. Constipation is an acquired habit and unquestionably negligence is the primary and the chief cause of it. The negligence, no doubt, begins at a very early age; it is at least an established habit before any intelligent, consecutive effort is made to remedy it. Inasmuch as women are the mothers of the race, and as their part in the scheme of life is the supreme one; and as constipation has been shown to be a serious, far-reaching, significant disease, a very sincere and persistent crusade should be made to educate women as to its importance. For a less altruistic purpose, tremendous popular movements have been carried to success. For a less service rendered to the race names have achieved renown. In addition to the symptoms stated in the preceding paper, the condition which we now desire to emphasize is the effect of the constant self-poisoning on the general health and its effect upon a woman's reproductive efficiency.
The poison being constantly absorbed, means general bad health, bad health to a degree depending upon the degree of constipation which is the cause of the poisoning. It may be simply that the woman does not wholly enjoy good health, or that she is completely incapacitated because of chronic bad health, or any degree of indifferent health between these two extremes.
If the degree of poison is sufficient to cause habitual poor health, its effect upon the blood must be bad, and the effect of the bad blood upon the nervous system and the other vital organs cannot be good. Now if this process has been going on for many years, the condition of the woman, who is its victim, as an efficient machine, compared with the woman in whom this condition never did exist, must be very different indeed. This condition of affairs—inasmuch as constipation is so common in women—must have a tremendous significance when estimating the vitality and efficiency of the coming generation.
We might go much further and yet be sure of our position, and maintain that it is this national autotoxemia, this scourge of womanhood, that is to a great extent responsible for the characteristic American "vice of neurasthenia," and of the domestic infelicity and unhappiness which are so common in the large cities of this country. If we add to the intestinal autotoxemia of constipation, the tendency to, or vice of, indiscriminate eating and drinking—of which the American people are particularly guilty—we would be on firmer ground. In fact we would feel that we had pointed out the one underlying cause of most of the domestic irritability prevalent to-day, which is of serious importance, and which is, fortunately, capable of correction. It is a matter of everlasting and continuous education.