This is the secret of the success of all schemes to cure disease. The human family will not knuckle down and swallow the truth. The man or woman in poor health is looking for Aladdin's lamp everywhere and always. A new bait, dressed up in lubricated, oily words, promising impossible results, will be accepted as the simple unadorned truth, and will be bought and paid for, in the end forgotten. The royal road, the easy road, which they are looking for is impossible. There is no way by which any one of us may continue to break the laws of nature and retain or regain our lost health. Miracles are impossible. Prayers without deeds are empty mouthings and a waste of time. Let us see how this works out in the treatment of constipation. We must find the cause of the constipation. I will name the causes in their order of frequency.
Negligence.—This is unquestionably the primary cause of almost all cases of bowel inactivity. As has been already noted, the exigencies of modern life are of such a strenuous nature that we do not find the time to devote to this function the degree of systematic attention which it demands in order to preserve a healthy condition of intestinal regularity. The bowel is simply a complex muscle controlled by an elaborate system of nerves of an involuntary type. In order to preserve the highest degree of efficiency of this complicated mechanism, it must be permitted to obey the laws nature endowed it with and which it must obey. When the fecal mass reaches the rectum the nerve centers, acting through the spinal cord, send a message to the rectum something like this: "Empty yourself of your contents, we have made all preparations and everything is ready." The rectum obeys to the extent of notifying you that it wants to be relieved; you feel the desire to evacuate the bowels. If you obey, all is well, nature is appeased, you encourage the systematic regularity necessary to good health. If you do not obey, you upset the delicate mechanism, and frequent negligence of this character will result in the complete disarrangement of this complex machinery so that it will fail to warn you that a bowel movement is necessary and constipation is established. We must therefore retrace our steps and re-educate the bowel systematically to empty itself at a certain time every day. This can be done in nearly every case without artificial assistance. It may take time but it is worth a little methodical persistence. The point is, you must do it; no "ism" or esoteric agency can do it for you.
Mothers will recognize from this explanation the necessity of establishing the habit in children at the earliest possible moment.
Lack of Exercise.—What does the word exercise imply? It implies movement, better circulation of the blood, better health and tone to every part of the body, more oxygen, and a richer, better quality of blood, and because of a better quality of blood, which is the fuel of the body machine, we have a better, smoother working machine. Every human being requires a certain amount of exercise; otherwise the machine will not run smoothly. If this exercise is not obtained, things begin to go wrong. One of the very first signs to indicate that the machine is not running as it ought to run, is a sluggish condition of the whole digestive apparatus and a certain degree of bowel inactivity (constipation) follows. There is no substitute for this need. Drugs will not help you, mechanical devices will not do the work for you, though they may aid you. You must do the work yourself. If you fail or hesitate to recognize the truth, if you temporize or procrastinate, you are only deferring the issue. The argument that you have not the time, that your work will not permit you, is no argument at all. You must do it or reap the consequences; you certainly cannot escape them. The wise woman accepts the situation, the fool goes to an early grave.
Lack of Water.—Constipation may be due to a deficiency of water in the system. Women who suffer from this type do not drink enough water. The bowel may be willing and able to do its duty, but is handicapped because a certain amount of liquid is essential to proper digestion and natural bowel activity. At least six glasses of water should be taken by every healthy adult human being in each twenty-four hours. The best time to take this water is as follows: one glass on arising, two between breakfast and lunch, two between lunch and dinner, and one on retiring. Between meals means one hour after a meal and at least one-half hour before the following meal. No liquid should be taken during a meal, or immediately after, or before a meal. All water taken may be hot or cold, according to the fancy of the taker. It is of advantage to squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the water taken on arising if there is any tendency to constipation or if the liver is lazy or torpid. It is also good for the complexion.
Lack of Bulk in the Food Taken.—Sometimes the character of the food taken is such that there is no body to it. The process of digestion so completely liquefies it that the bowel has no solid matter to manipulate. To excite the peculiar movements of the intestinal wall there must be substance in the contents. The variety of the daily food must be so arranged as to provide this. A list of these foods is provided elsewhere in this book. Certain other foods stimulate intestinal activity, not because of their bulk, but because of the chemical elements they contain. All forms of sugar, the sugars of fruits, the acids of fruits and vegetables, are excellent natural laxatives. Sour milk and buttermilk, oils and fats, are also of distinct value in this respect.
On the other hand, soups, gruels, porridges, and purées are constipating because the digestive process reduces them to liquids and leaves no bulk for the bowel to act upon. New bread, hot biscuits, "noodles," and doughy foods are also objectionable, especially to children. Hot baths, hot drinks, hot enemas, and sweating are also constipating because they extract so much liquid from the bowel leaving the contents excessively dry.
Abuse of Cathartic Drugs and Aperient Waters.—This is a widespread evil; it may justly be regarded as a national curse. The victims of this custom do not realize that they are addicted to a habit which must be rightly regarded as equally as bad as the drink habit, so far as its ultimate effect on the general health and the prospect of longevity is concerned. Its popularity is a product of our national vice of indiscriminate eating and drinking. It is more common among the class who live in restaurants, hotels, and boarding houses, who keep late hours, eat late suppers and who do not exercise enough. These individuals eat too much and live too high. After a time the liver becomes sluggish, the stomach fails to digest properly, the bowels lose their tone, and flatulent indigestion or some other more or less serious condition follows; to maintain the pace, to feel and keep fit, they discover that a glass of some advertised aperient or laxative water before breakfast works wonders, tides them over for the time being and keeps them "in the ring." They compliment themselves and push the specter of age aside.
The thought that they were not "as young as they once were," or that they must go slow, was not a very pleasing suggestion, so having found a "cure" by adding another bad habit on top of an existence which is composed of nothing but bad habits, they start all over again. The suggestion that their trouble is a warning that "things are going wrong" and that the whole plan of living must be radically and promptly changed does not meet with their approval, and so the Department of Health statistics heap up the records of deaths due to heart disease, hardening of the arteries, Bright's disease of the kidneys and apoplexy. It is not a happy tale, but the truth is often tragic.
When a woman finds that her physical efficiency depends upon the habitual use of cathartic drugs or laxative waters, she must regard the knowledge with respect, she must give it serious consideration, and she must adopt means to so change her method of living, that nature will be given a chance to work in her interest—not against her. Better to find out exactly where the trouble is now, and go after it than to travel too far along the wrong road. Many die from the "disease" of procrastination.