Constipation in any of the personnel is a factor which must be avoided, and it is necessary that all hands be impressed with the importance of a regular daily movement of the bowels and a complete evacuation at each act. Defæcation is apt to be hurried or neglected in bad weather at sea and in cold and snowy weather ashore. Polar travel does not admit of comfortable latrines, and this often means exposure to wind and drift, for the daily functions are carried out in the ordinary way. This exposure of the body, though exceedingly uncomfortable, leads to no lasting harm, for, as will be shown, it is in the comparatively bloodless extremities that frost-bite usually occurs. Constipation is followed by absorption of poison from the bowel, and so must be especially avoided if the risk of scurvy is imminent. Its correction in bad weather must be carefully carried out, for the cruelty of drastic purgation under these conditions can be imagined. In future those responsible must make themselves _au fait_ with the steps necessary to prevent the onset of deficiency diseases. Scurvy caused the failure of Lord Anson’s expedition; in Captain Cook’s brilliant voyages it was absent. Compare the bad conditions in the _Alert_ and _Discovery_ in 1875 with the earlier voyages of Sir Robert McClure in the _Investigator_. Always success and failure have depended upon its presence or absence. In more recent times, take the case of Captain Scott and the gallant companions who met their fate so bravely. Mr. Cherry Garrard attributes their failure to return from the Pole to several conditions, one of them a deficiency in the calorific value of their ration. “It is a fact that the polar party failed to make their distance because they became weak, although _they were eating their full ration or more than their full ration of food_, save for a few days when they were short on the way down the Beardmore Glacier....” He goes on to say: “The Summit (S) ration consisted of biscuits 16, pemmican 12, butter 2, cocoa 0.57, sugar 3, and tea 0.86 oz.; total, 34.43 oz. daily per man.”