FERMENTATION.--Now let us consider the matter from another standpoint. If food stays too long in the stomach it begins to ferment. When anything ferments it makes and evolves gas. You, no doubt, have noticed many times how the cork pops out of a bottle if its contents are "working," or fermenting. If you watch that bottle you will notice that it is quietly or actively evolving air bubbles. That is gas,--gas manufactured by the process of fermentation. This is exactly the process that goes on in the stomach or bowel of a dyspeptic, and it is this collection of foul, poisonous gas that causes the distress and bloated feeling which every dyspeptic suffers from after eating,--if it is this "flatulent" type of indigestion which is present. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CONSTIPATION.--If the food takes too long to pass through the bowel it causes, as we have stated, constipation. What is the real significance of constipation? It means that in passing through the bowel the food has given up all its liquid element (which is all its nourishing element), but the bowel has been too slow in passing it along. Consequently it is not ready to be expelled while it is yet a harmless semi-solid mass. It stays in the bowel too long--it begins to putrefy, bacteria attack it, and it is soon a semi-liquid, foul, rotting mass. The sucking glands in the intestinal wall continue to suck--that is their duty. They cannot discriminate between what is good and what is bad--they simply go on absorbing whatever is there to absorb. So there are absorbed into the system liquid and gaseous products which are poison. This process has been called by a number of names; "self-poisoning" explains the condition thoroughly. The other names are, auto-infection, auto-intoxication, enteric-infection, enteric-toxemia, intestinal indigestion. The condition is a serious one, because it is absolutely impossible to feel well, or to enjoy good health, while it lasts. The feeling of being constantly sick, yet not sick enough to stop working or to demand a radical cure, affects a woman's efficiency, interferes with her capacity to work, her ability to render the home an abode of contentment, to be an agreeable companion, or to adequately take care of her children.