Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1915-03-19
copyright, 1914. by A. S. Gray)
CONSTIPATION.

state of the blood from time imme-
mortal has been held responsible for
most of ills humanity is heir to.
In the past eonstipated patients
were piled with pill and powder, oils,
salts, waters and other laxative COM
pounds, both natural and manufac-
tured. One after the other invari-
ably they all failed in the end and
the doctor had to be again consulted.
Generally he only varied the dose of
this or that or prescribed another
drug, without any attempt at a
thorough investigation, and generally,
too, without even so much as a cur
sorry examination. Finally the public
caught the idea and ceased going to
the doctor for such a minor ailment
and experimental with various pills,
powders and waters, such as the in
genuity of the manufacturer could
devise or the druggist could sug-
gest.
Aided and abetted by the artistic
photographer and the circus bill post
err an educational campaign for in
struction on how every man may be-
come his own physician now forms
highly suggestive background to the
general landscape throughout the
country. AS the result of clever ad-
vertising campaigns the carrying of
box of laxative tablets, pills or
candy in the pocket in order to facili-
TOT hn Iai1 0F +hn
remedy has become habitual with a
large percentage of our people.
Constipation unfortunately is not
an insignificant local affair that may
easily be overcome by some simple
remedy but, on the contrary, it is gen.
orally symptom of a slowly develop
ing constitutional condition, the spe-
ciic name of which will appear in
the death certificate of the victim,
1t is only of late years that we really
have begun to understand the relations
existing between constipation and the
rest Of the body; to comprehend that
functional inactivity in the gastric
tract is perhaps but part of gen
|
to end disastrously if not corrected
by a comprehensive reimbursement of
individual habits and relations
Just as it is impossible for us to
understand human society until we
are able to visualize it, according to
the teachings of Herbert Spencer, as
an organism, as a living evolving body,
just so is it impossible for US to unu-
derstand our individual physical ills
until we are able to reverse this proc
ess of Spencer's and visualize these
bodies of ours as a society of indi
vidual units cooperating for mutual
help and protection.
When we came to understand that
our bodies are composed of individ
ual cells, each a comprehensive indi
vidual unit, and that the welfare OF
the body as a whole depends on the
welfare of that individual cell or unit
then 1t becomes fairly clear and easy
for us to grasp our needs and the
reasons for our ills and we begin tc
see a logical way out of our Difficult
ties.
BY far the most important factor ir
the maintenance of health is food. Tt
the average individual food means
something edible and palatable. which
will satisfy the demands of hunger
and thirst and enable him to maintain
normal strength Of body and mind
Up to a very recent time textbooks or
physiology taught that the three chic
foods Of men were proteids, fats anC
carbohydrates. Tucked away in al
obscure corner, if indeed they were
at all mentioned, under the name o
ash the mineral salts received bare
mention, the author usually explaining
chat little or nothing was known o
their action in physiology.
Recently we have come to under
stand that not only are there man!
proteids and that some proteids d.
not alone suffice to sustain human
life, but we have come to understand
also that proteids, fats and carbohy
drates are not the three chief food
/, of man.
Going back through millions o
years TO the single cell, to the amebi
state of existence, we find that tn
primary food elements were, and still
are, air, water and mineral salts. Com
Ing up the long ladder of progressive
animal evolution, we finally come t
a period where proteids, fats and cal
bohydrates, in fixed definiteness an
proportion, became necessary to u
as vertebrates; and, while these tire
classes of foods are absolutely vita
to our existence as higher animals
we are beginning to comprehend tina
they are still subsidiary to the frs
d three-exactly as our more recent
acquired brain, superimposed on t
our primitive sympathetic system, ha
! recently been demonstrated to be sui
= sidiary 20 the ductless gland syster
: comprising our primordial nervou
system.
The individual workers of the bod,
= the cells composing our bodies, ar
! nourshed by the blood stream, an
{ the most valuable components OF ths