Our fathers partook of laxatives, cathartics, purgatives, and in consequence we start in life with teeth, intestines, appendices, out of gear and nervous systems on edge. With unconscious stupidity we continue the fatuous practice. The monarch selected to preside over the functions of human life was the Liver; and it is only with bated breath that any doctor dares question the legitimacy of that monarch's claim. The loyal subjects of King Liver are ever ready to call out "quack," "charlatan," etc., to those who dare repudiate the sovereignty of the Liver. So much attention and flirtation does the liver receive from the _liver-persuaders_ that the pancreas ought to be very jealous. The pancreas excretes quite as much fluid into the duodenum as its larger neighbor, and is, therefore, no mean organ. And we need not wonder should we find the intestinal glands piqued at our over-attention to the liver, as they, in their work at the metamorphosis of digested food into blood, excrete two or three gallons of fluid in a day to the liver's two or three pints; yet witness our medieval solicitude for the liver, for one among many organs. The liver is located near the upper portion of the intestinal canal and connected by a tube (the bile duct) to the rest of the excursion route. The following liver-persuading knights-errant are prescribed and ordered by disciples of Hippocrates, Galen, Herodicus, and Iccus, to treat with that digestive and eliminative monarch, the Liver--usually at night-time, that the family may not be disturbed. After making as good terms as possible they journey on, riotously churning and swashing the long, tortuous canal and its contents in search of ancient toxic gases and feces lodged in the lower bowel. It is believed by the prescribers that the length of the journey adds dignity to the drastic, dredging knights-errant. The reader needs no introduction to the podophyllins, the aloes, the jalaps, the rhubarbs, the mercurys, the croton oils, the sennas, the salines, the seltzers, the Carters, the Beechams, the Websters, the Pierces, the Ayers, the Ripans, the Warners, and others belonging to "The Four Hundred" fashionable grenadiers, with their credentials and stamp! After these knights-errant have paid their respects to King Liver, and ended their long, tortuous and eventful journey, they depart and leave behind them burning and painful abdominal and anal regrets, and then some soothing, stimulating and tonic remedies are in order, so that the dredged though chronically constipated sufferer and his friends may still hope that life will be spared to repeat the same nauseating and often painful process in a few days or weeks, taking, in the meanwhile, milder bile-bouncers daily as a reminder to King Liver that the time for the knights-errant is coming again.