Of course such excessive accumulations occur only exceptionally, and it is not to these that attention is particularly drawn, because when they are so excessive, any physician can detect them by palpation (touch).

It is to the minor accumulations particularly, that I wish to draw attention-the accumulations that we see in the majority of patients who visit our offices. Such patients assure us that the bowels move daily, but the color of their complexions, and the condition of their tongues, are enough to assure us that they are the victims of costiveness.

Daily movements of the bowels are no sort of a sign that the colon is not impacted; in fact, the worst cases of costiveness that we ever see are those in which daily movements of the bowels occur. The diagnosis of fæcal accumulations is facilitated by inquiring as to the color of the daily discharges. A black or a very dark green color almost always indicates that the fæces are ancient. Prompt discharge of food refuse is indicated by more or less yellow color. It would be interesting to inquire why fresh fæces are yellow and ancient fæces are dark.

Such patients have digestive fermentations to torment them, resulting in flatulent distension which encroaches on the cavity of the chest, which in excessive cases may cause short and rapid breathing, irregular heart action, disturbed circulation in the brain, with vertigo and headache. An over-distended cæcum, or sigmoid flexure, from pressure, may produce dropsy, numbness or cramps in the right or left lower extremity.

The reports of the post-mortem examination of the colons of hundreds of subjects reveal a series of horrors

more weird and ghastly than were ever penned by Eugene Sue, or Emile Zola. The mind shrinks in dismay at the appalling revelations, and shudders at the possibility of the "human form divine" becoming such a peripatetic charnel house.

Is it any wonder that the average human system being thus saturated with impurities, should succumb to the first exciting cause? Is it not, in fact, a greater marvel that the rate of mortality is not even higher than at present?

The object in publishing this book is to point out the true cause of disease, together with the means for its prevention and cure, and that too by a simple and inexpensive method of hygienic treatment, which has proved eminently successful in tens of thousands of cases, which is perfectly harmless and natural in its action, and absolutely free from even the suspicion of a drug. The world will yet see the day when it will be deemed a disgrace to be in ill health, but in the meantime humanity suffers.

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PART III.

RATIONAL HYGIENIC TREATMENT.

Having striven to explain in an intelligible manner the true nature and cause of disease, and to point out the inadequacy of the drug system of treatment to combat pathological conditions successfully (not from any lack of intention on the part of the drug practitioners: but from the unreliability of their methods), I shall now proceed to lay before you the system of treatment which it is proposed to substitute in its stead, and I unhesitatingly affirm that it will be found so simple, so inexpensive and so obviously based on common-sense and true hygienic principles, that the thoughtful reader cannot fail to give it his unqualified endorsement, and will be lost in wonder that anyone should fail to adopt it, when made acquainted with its simplicity and its marvellous results.

In an old comedy, which used to delight our forefathers, the hero, Felix O'Callaghan, defines the practice of medicine as "the art of amusing the patient while Nature performs the cure." In that sentence, the dramatist (unwittingly perhaps) embodied a great truth. Nature, and Nature only, can effect a cure. Fresh air, sunlight, pure water, diet and exercise are the great curative agents provided by Nature, and all that the physician can do, no

matter to what school he belongs, is to remove as far as possible, all existing impediments, and to see that the hygienic conditions are made as favorable as possible. For the rest, Nature, the marvellous builder, will, in her own mysterious way, build up fresh tissue, and, slowly but surely, repair the ravages made by disease. No one would dare to say that the farmer made the corn grow. He does all that the science of agriculture tells him is needful to furnish proper conditions for growth, but there he must stop the rest must be left to Nature. Then, since disease is a wasting of tissue, and recovery a building up, it is a palpable absurdity to credit a physician with a cure. All that he can do is to co-operate with Nature, by seeing that none of her laws are violated, and insisting that nothing whatever shall obstruct her beneficent functions.

Whether for the preservation of health, or the treatment of disease, when present, the chief thing is to cleanse the colon. It is useless to attempt to get rid of the effects while the cause is present.

If the principal drain in a dwelling becomes choked, what is the consequence? The noxious and pestilent gases generated by the accumulated filth having no outlet, are forced back into the building, poisoning the atmosphere, and breeding contagion among the inhabitants. Deodorizing and disinfecting will simply be a waste of time and material, until the drain is cleared. The colon is the main drain of the human body, and if it be necessary, for sanitary reasons, to keep the house drains clean, how vitally important is it to keep the main outlet of the physical system free from obstructions.