That the character and disposition may be materially influenced by such a state of the bowels is well established. Plato believed that "an infirm constitution is an obstacle to virtue, because such persons think of nothing but their own wretched carcasses"; for which reason he contended that Æsculapius should not undertake to patch up persons habitually complaining, lest they beget children as useless as themselves, being persuaded that it was an injury both to the community and to the infirm person himself that he continue in the world, even though he were richer than Midas. Acting on this well-known fact, the celebrated Voltaire, in one of the articles in his _Philosophical Dictionary_, has very humorously ascribed half the evils of Europe to the intestinal irritations of the public men of the age. "Let the person," he adds, "who may wish to ask a favor of a minister, or a minister's secretary, or kept mistress, endeavor previously, by all means, to ascertain whether they go to stool regularly; and, if possible, to approach them after a comfortable evacuation, that being a most propitious moment, one of the _mollia tempora fandi_, when the individual is good-humored and pleased with all around him." CHAPTER XI. KING LIVER AND BILE-BOUNCERS. The "house not made with hands"--the human body--has, like the house made with hands, _its_ sewer system, which is over twenty-five feet in length. To cleanse (?) this wonderfully delicate, tortuous and extended passage-way of waste material, civilized man knows no better than to put in at the top of the house, purgatives, cathartics, bile-bouncers, etc., with one hope and purpose in view, namely, that these policemen go searching, scouring and hustling the intestines in the greatest possible haste, in order to remove an obstruction about three hundred inches distant from where these "forcers" had entered the intestinal sewer. With mercury as a scavenger the work is pretty thoroughly done, though extra care has to be taken that some of the teeth may remain after the victim survives the additional intestinal inflammation occasioned by its drastic measures. Traits acquired by the father are inherited by the children; present-day doctors follow early practitioners; they still pour in many and various decoctions at the top of the obstructed sewer of the human house to dislodge accumulated gases and feces at the bottom. The plumber treats the sewer of the house of brick and stone more wisely.