(Sodium Sulphate), Cascara Sagrada, and liquid paraffin are all good, while
Castor Oil Globules are suited for children.

For flatulence, take a 10-minim capsule of Terebine after meals, or
charcoal, either as French Rusks ("Biscols Fraudin") or a teaspoonful of
powdered charcoal between meals. One drop of creosote on a lump of sugar,
peppermint water, and sal volatile may also be used. Sufferers should toast
bread, and use sugar sparingly.

Patent medicines almost invariably contain a brisk aperient.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XV

GENERAL HYGIENE

"Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught."
--Dryden.

If men but realized what complicated machines they were, they would use
themselves better. In the body are 240 bones and hundreds of muscles. The
heart, no bigger than the clenched fist, beats 100,000 times a day; the
aerating surface of the lungs is equal in area to the floors of a
six-roomed house, and by means of its minute blood-vessels which would
stretch across the Atlantic, 500 gallons of blood are brought into contact
with over 3,000 gallons of air every day.

Seven million sweat-glands, 30 miles long, get rid of a pint of liquid and