Finding this, the question inevitably is, What is the best agent for cleansing this marvelously sensitive canal, twenty-five feet long, whose mucous membrane extends forty-five feet? No one would think of taking, if he could, the foul sewer in his hands, and shaking it, fold upon fold, with the faint yet fond hope of sterilizing it. How can any mode of physical culture meet the requirements for effecting a cure of ulcerative proctitis and colitis, to say nothing about keeping the bowels sweet and clean? Chronic, subacute, and acute inflammation, accompanied with ulceration, located in any part of the body, requires rest to overcome the fever and congestion. Muscular exercise irritates and inflames the diseased parts. Another form of “physical culture” would put into the bowels all sorts of stuff that cannot be digested, such as bran, crushed seeds, shells, raw food, etc., that set up excessive muscular action and secretion of mucus as the improper stuff passes down and out. In the sacred name of hygiene, this new cathartic remedy is prescribed and taken. Seeking relief from the painful effects, the patient finds that these “remedies” make the disease and its symptoms worse. Hygienic fool-killers are, like the poor, always with us. [Illustration: Fig. 14. A longitudinal section of the end of the small intestines, or ileum, and of the beginning of the large intestines, or colon. 1, 1, a portion of the ascending colon; 2, 2, the cæcum, or caput coli; 3, 3, lower portion of the ileum; 4, 4, the muscular coat, covered by the peritoneum; 5, 5, the cellular and mucous coats; 6, 6, folds of the mucous coat at this end of the colon; 7, 7, prolongations of the cellular coat into these folds; 8, 8, ileo colic valve; 9, 9, the union of the coats of the ileum and colon.] You are aware of the irritation that a grain of sand will set up when it comes in contact with the mucous membrane of the eye. Then can you not realize that you will torment the forty-five feet of intestinal mucous membrane with like indigestible stuff? It is estimated that ten per cent. of the really suitable food is residue matter with which the digestive tract has to deal and get rid of with as much economy and as little friction as possible. Then why increase this residue twenty or fifty per cent.? More than nine-tenths of the human race have been content to depend on comparatively violent excitants, such as drugs, coarse food, and muscular exercise, etc., to relieve the bowels of the feces, liquids, and gases of a most foul character--the foulness due to putrid fermentation and undue retention.