No amount of forcing drugs given by the mouth can induce a movement from above the constriction, but a great amount of pain can be produced by attempting to force a passage. No one comprehending the true state of affairs would be foolhardy enough to try to force the bowels to move. The reader can readily imagine the great pain and danger liable to follow cathartic drugs, for they stimulate severe peristaltic contractions. The contractions drive the contents of the small intestine against the inflamed cut-off, but there it must stop. If the parts have become softened, which they do by the inflammation, there is danger of perforation and an escape of the contents of the bowels into the peritoneal cavity, after which diffuse peritonitis and death follow. Surgery can hardly hope to save such patients; in fact they usually die; this is why the surgeon recommends an early operation. If all cases are to be so abused and if there were no better way to treat them I also should say, operate at once as soon as the disease is discovered; but I know from years of experience that there is a better way to care for these patients. CHAPTER X Allow me to repeat: As soon as a case is diagnosed the proper treatment is to stop all medicine and food, for they excite movement, and this should be avoided. Give nothing but water. Keep ice over the inflamed spot. Keep the patient quiet, end the feet warm. There is absolutely nothing to be done until the bowels move, which will take place in from fourteen to twenty-eight days. The patient will not starve to death, nor will there be any danger that the abscess will open anywhere except into the bowels. After the bowels move, one glass of hot milk is to be given three times a day, so there will be no danger of solid food finding its way into the cavity of the abscess. To be safe I insist on a fluid diet for a week after the bowels move, and a light diet for two or three weeks more. Cases taken through in this way, and then instructed in never allowing the bowels to become loaded again, will not only make a good recovery, but there is no tendency for the disease to return if the patient is prudent. I say that there need not be a death from this disease if these suggestions are properly carried out. The cases that die every year are killed by food and medicine. Surgery has gained its reputation in these cases because of the stupidity of the average physician and patient. Cases taken through in this way are comparatively comfortable; they may pretend to suffer from hunger, but it is principally imagination. If my plan were generally adopted the dread of this disease would disappear; surgeons would get left on some fat fees, and the undertaker would look glum after the fall crop.