IN a cure of constipation our "health-food" specialists unanimously recommend mechanic irritation as a proper treatment for the exhausted bowels. In place of the justly condemned chemicals and condiments, we are asked to use the not less indigestible substances of bran, hull, ground up straw, mill-sweepings, grain, cracked into sharp, irritating angularities, skin and seeds of fruit. The irritation of these indigestible substances as they are tearing down the delicate membranes of the intestinal canal acts as a whip on the already overworked bowel, forcing it into renewed action, as the welfare of the system demands a speedy elimination of the irritating agent, by an enforced and strained evacuation. It is the behavior of the toxins to produce the same effect of diarrhea upon the bowel as shown in the peristaltic convulsions following ptomaine poisoning, whether in the painful spasms, gripping the bowel under the irritation of a typhoid fever, or a membranous colitis. And unless the organism is very strongly fortified by hereditary animal vitality, the nervous system must sooner or later break down under the strain, and smother the cell-world of the organism with physiological wreckage.

The plea for bran as a natural food is based upon the supposition that the system for its orderly functioning requires the gastric and intestinal irritation of the sharp-cut lacerating hull of the grain. Bran is made up of the same indigestible substance as the straw, and is valuable not as food, but as the natural protective covering of the food. The very imperviousness and indigestibility of cellulose renders it a fit protection to the delicate pulp of the fruit or vegetable enclosed within. The same qualities that give to the hull and skin their power to resist attacks of insects, and the dissolving influence of rain, parching sunlight and shriveling cold, cause this cellulose also to resist the dissolving influence of digestion with its chemistry of secretory fluids - a fact instinctively recognized by rodents and birds which by a quick rotary motion of their teeth or beak, succeed with great dexterity in peeling off the outer covering of the grain. The same caution is observed with regard to the peels of fruits, which the birds are always avoiding by carefully carving out the pulp from its intractable and valueless covering.

The theory that bran is valuable as a laxative is based upon the same principle that a whip is a good tonic for a tired horse. The bran moves the bowels by sheer force of irritation - causing the injured tissues to exert a special effort to remove from the alimentary canal the offending agent. A similar effect is produced by sand or fine gravel, which actually has been sprung upon the public by perambulating therapeutists as an infallible remedy for sluggish bowels. And there is no doubt of the effect of the remedy; the objection lies merely in the untimate result on the system. For an agent which has the power to move the bowels, yet does not possess the vital elements necessary for the re-generation of the weakened nerve power, in place of adding energy to the organism becomes a positive loss to its reserves. There is only one safe, biologically justified method of moving the bowels, and that is through adding nerve power to the peristaltic center, which again is possible only through the administration of such vital agencies as water, air, food, rest and appropriate physical culture. Any agent which causes the bowels to act by stress of irritation expends vitality in place of generating it.*

*Furthermore as the coarse hull of the grain begins to cause irritation in the lining of the stomach, the latter, as a means of self-protection, proceeds to flood the injured parts with secretions of hydro-chloric acid, which in the course of time will give rise to an excess of acid in the system with corresponding symptoms of acidosis, muscular soreness and neuralgic pains in shoulders, chest and neck, or wherever the pneumogastric or splanchnic nerves come to the surface. And as the general public is not in a position to trace the connection between the coarse breadstuffs in the stomach and the neuralgic pains in the neck, they will soak their interior with tonics and their exterior with ointments, without any other benefit than prospects of future complications in stomach, liver and kidney - while the mere elimination of the offending "Health-foods" and the introduction of a sensible diet would have restored the system to its natural condition of health and usefulness.

If one feels inclined to utilize the streaks of phosphorus and nitrogen contained in the hull it is easy to extract them by soaking some clean bran in a pitcher of water and then allow it to drain over night. The best proportion is a mixture of one-half pound of Bran to one quart of warm water. Taken on an empty stomach or between meals a valuable beverage is obtained without the need of encumbering the digestion with a mass of intractable cellulose.

The experience by Mr. Hoover during the European war in supplying the starving Belgians with bread made from bran and graham millings sufficiently proves the pernicious effect upon the ordinary stomach from an indulgence in coarse, irritating foodstuffs. After a few weeks the population began to suffer from the effects of the bread, developing symptoms of gastric and intestinal ulcerations, followed by cramps and spasms which continued until Mr. Hoover, on the remon- stration of the Belgian physicians, decided to stop the import of the "health bread." On the other hand it is extremely questionable whether the patent sifted substitute known as white bread, which was made to replace the bran bread, was in any way an improvement on the ultimate health conditions of the people. For if the coarse substances are pernicious through the irritation of the intestinal surfaces, the patent sifted flour on the other hand deadens the sensibility of the absorbing glands, and at the same time fails to furnish the vitally important tissue salts contained in the fourth layer of the grain, which is lost in the patent sifting processes of the modern mill. There is only one safe and sure way to health and that is in the maintenance of the original design introduced by nature in the biologic completeness and vital poise of her products. The ideal bread should be made from the entire grain, finely ground and with the coarse, outer covering closely peeled off and eliminated.

To most dietitians the main object of diet seems to be to prepare such food-mixtures as increase intestinal peristalsis. This, however, is a misconception of the real value of diet. As there are two ways of increasing the activity of your horse, so there are two ways of stimulating a sluggish bowel: by whipping or feeding. The one is irritation, the other nutrition; and to stimulate a system into a physiological heightening of its activities, without imparting a corresponding amount of nourishment, is no less ridiculous than the notion that a worn-out horse can be strengthened by a freely applied whip.

Peristalsis is due to a wave of nervous energy, arising in the semilunar ganglia and solar plexus, from which center the ensuing momentum is dispensed throughout the intestinal coil. The process resembles the mechanical movement of a watch, in which the wheels receive their impulse from the movement generated in the static, high-tensioned power of the coiled-up mainspring. And, furthermore, just as in the case of a weakened mainspring, the watch may occasionally be made to move up to the correct time by an appropriate manipulation of its hands and wheels, so intestinal peristalsis may be temporarily regulated by mechanical or chemical irritation, due to coarse, indigestible foodstuff, while in reality not a single momentum of vital energy may have been added to the nerve life of the organism.