“You can digest anything if you use Thingumbob Pills,” observed Mr. Clyde sardonically. “The newspapers say so.” “That’s the kind of doctrine that makes dyspeptics,” returned Dr. Strong. “The American stomach is the worst-abused organ in creation. Saliva is the true digestive. If people would take time to chew properly, half the dyspepsia-pill fakers would go out of business. If they’d take time to exercise properly, the other half would disappear.” “Liver pills were my regular dependence a few years ago,” remarked Mr. Clyde. “Since I took up hand-ball I haven’t needed them. But I suppose that half the business men in town think they couldn’t live without drugging themselves two or three times a week.” “Undoubtedly. Tell the average American any sort of a lie in print, about his digestion, and he’ll swallow it whole, together with the drug which the lie is intended to sell. Look at the Cascaret advertising. Its tendency is to induce, not an occasional recourse to Cascarets, but a steady use of them. Any man foolish enough to follow the advice of the advertisements would form a Cascaret habit and bring his digestion into a state of slavery. That sort of appeal has probably ruined more digestions and spoiled more tempers than any devil-dogma ever put into type.” “Castor-oil is good enough for me,” said Grandma Sharpless emphatically. “It’s good enough for anybody—that is to say, bad enough and nasty enough so that there isn’t much danger of its being abused. But these infernal sugar-coated candy cathartics get a hold on a man’s intestinal organization so that it can’t do its work without ‘em, and, Lord knows, it can’t stand their stimulus indefinitely. Then along comes appendicitis.” “But some of the laxative medicines advertise to prevent appendicitis,” said Mrs. Clyde. Dr. Strong’s face was very grim. “Yes, they advertise. Commercial travelers, because of their irregular habits, are great pill-guzzlers as a class. Appendicitis is a very common complaint among them. A Pittsburgh surgeon with a large practice among traveling men has kept records, and he believes that more than fifty per cent of the appendicitis cases he treats are caused by the ‘liver-pill’ and ‘steady-cathartic’ habit. He explains his theory in this way. The man begins taking the laxative to correct his bad habits of life. Little by little he increases his dose, as the digestive mechanism grows less responsive to the stimulus, until presently an overdose sets his intestines churning around with a violence never intended by nature. Then, under this abnormal peristalsis, as it is called, the appendix becomes infected, and there’s nothing for it but the surgeon’s knife.” “Would you have people run to the doctor and pay two dollars every time their stomach got a little out of kilter?” asked Mrs. Sharpless shrewdly.