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A GUIDE TO HEALTH

least two hours every day. I have myself seen severe cases of constipation, dysentery, piles and gripes effectively cured by this simple treatment. Piles may not, of course, completely disappear, but they will certainly cease to give trouble. The sufferer from gripes should take special care not to take any food except lime-juice in hot water, so long as there is discharge of blood or mucus. If there is excessive griping pain in the stomach, it can be cured by warming with a bottle of hot water or a piece of well-heated wick. Needless to say, the patient should live constantly in the open air.

Fruits like the French plum, the raisin, the orange and the grape, are particularly useful in constipation. This does not, of course, mean that these fruits may be eaten even where there is no hunger. They ought not to be eaten at all in cases of gripes accompanied by a bad taste in the mouth.




Chapter VI

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES: SMALL-POX

Now we will proceed to deal with the treatment of contagious diseases. They have a common origin, but, since small-pox is by far the most important of them, we will give a separate chapter to it, dealing with the rest in another chapter.