In case of severe constipation, injections——internal baths, so to say——may be employed in emergencies, but infrequently and with extreme care, lest they aggravate the evil and provoke others. Although in no sense as injurious as purgative medicines, which inevitably impair the nutritive organs, still enemas should never be depended on for daily movements. Next to a correct dietary, with liberal exercise in the open air, one of the best aids in promoting regular action of the bowels is, in my opinion, passive exercise——kneading of the bowels for say five minutes or more before each meal——and the more active exercise of, say, imitating for a few minutes the arms-and-body swinging motions of a mower in the hay-field; spending another few minutes in hopping up and down, twice on each foot alternately, while “keeping time” by slapping the thighs and swaying the body to the right and left; stooping and rising, bending forward and back, etc.; twisting the body around, first one way and then the other, with the hips as the pivotal point (at stool this last greatly facilitates the ejective process), etc., etc. Sedentary persons, and all who feel “chilly” at times, will find, upon trial, that a few minutes devoted to such exercise, occasionally, or whenever the need is felt, will be far more satisfactory than extra garments, or hovering about the fire: it sets the blood a-tingling in the veins and warms a body up.[39] (See Consumption, for general regimen as to diet, air, exercise, clothing.) If for a time the bowels are willful in the matter of demanding rest to complete a process of healing going on in the diseased glands when there has been distention and irritation, or until a reformed dietary shall have strengthened the general system when, from any cause, it has been under-nourished, and there is, consequently, no action for two, three, or even four days at a time, it need occasion no alarm, and the novice will be surprised to see how natural a movement will finally reward his or her patience in awaiting the call of nature, instead of badgering her into unnatural activity. It must be remembered that it is _good health that ensures daily movements_, and not _daily movements good health_. Indeed, when produced by hook or crook, as is often the rule with infants, and adults, even, they do much harm. Daily purgations or injections are made necessary only by gross feeding; and if the latter abuse be persisted in it may be best to move the bowels frequently at all hazards. Under the influence of this combination, however, the small intestines are often so disordered as to impair, even destroy, their power of assimilating food, and together with the colon, or large intestine, become so torpid as almost to require the use of dynamite to move them.