to the present time has been due to improper
diagnosis. Writers on these subjects speak of them as causes when they
are merely symptoms. And the remedies for these "causes" are even more
numerous. _Mistaken diagnosis on the one hand, measured doses on the
other, and there you have the scientific doctor!_ The primary cause,
inflammation, like the original spark applied to dry shavings, sets up
morbid changes in the various parts of the digestive canal and the
other organs of the body, and these "set up" or established changes are
properly secondary or derivative causes accompanied by their own
symptoms. The primary disease and symptoms may exist for five, ten,
twenty or more years before any pronounced secondary or derivative
diseases and their symptoms occur or are noticeable to a sufficiently
marked degree.

The chronic character of the malady, and the complication of primary
with secondary diseases and their symptoms, have thoroughly
disconcerted the doctors. Hence the many "causes" assigned for
indigestion, constipation, etc., and the many kinds of remedies
prescribed with the one sure result, FAILURE; and hence, also, not a
few of the self- and drug-intoxicated ones dubbed, or actually
developed into, hypochondriacs. Diagnosis wrong, treatment wrong,
failure certain, and the foulness of the intestinal canal continued!
This is the experience and testimony of the many, many sufferers from
the most common malady that afflicts humanity from infancy to old age,
and which will continue to afflict the great majority until it is
properly understood and treated.

When a sewer of a town is obstructed, the most sensible plan is to
begin the investigation at the outlet and then proceed up, section
after section, to trace the obstacle that had occasioned the
accumulation of debris. When the waste-pipes of a house are clogged, we
do not expect the plumber to go to the top of the building and poke
substances down the pipe to dislodge the unduly retained material some
twenty-five feet or more away. Nor would we believe him if he informed
us that the sewer-gas and overflow of waste in the house were the
_cause_ of the constipated condition of the drain. But just this is
what the doctor declares concerning our sewer; just this is what he
does when he doses it with laxatives, cathartics, purgatives. Such is
the treatment we receive when we rush to the doctor, or such the
treatment we give ourselves. The poor, sensitive, inflamed can