In the alimentary canal there are vessels for holding fluid, semi-fluid and moist masses of substance, in all of which decomposition occurs if the substances be retained beyond the normal length of time. These vessels or reservoirs are the stomach, duodenum, small intestines, colon, sigmoid flexure, and too often the rectum. Through the harmonious action of this intestinal retinue of servitors man is well equipped and qualified for health, and he in whom this harmonious subservience prevails is among the blessed and elect of mankind. But alas! the great majority of human beings are sufferers from the inharmonious and insubordinate action of these servitors. How many a human being suffers from _chronic constipation and indigestion_, the exciting causes of which are insidious, and the consequences a protean enemy to his happiness! Medical writers on the subject of chronic constipation have assigned numerous causes, and likewise prescribed multitudinous remedies to the patient; but as a general rule this patient, after suffering various woes, if still surviving the many years of medication, rebels against taking further remedies and resigns himself to the chronic enemy on the best terms he can make with diet. For this large class of chronic sufferers we have good news; and for the class that have suffered five or ten years we have better news; and for the class of infants and children that have started on the road of ill-health we have real glad tidings. To know that there is only one chief cause for chronic constipation and its train of disorders, and that that cause overshadows all other causes combined, and is easily diagnosed and treated, is news long hoped and prayed for by a multitude of sufferers the world over. Twenty years as a specialist in diseases of the lower bowels have demonstrated to the writer that chronic inflammation, and often ulceration, of the rectum and sigmoid flexure, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, is the cause of chronic constipation and the long army of ills resulting from it. And yet, as the reader is well aware, constipation has had many "causes," since the days of Hippocrates, especially the abnormal condition of the liver.