t night and allowed to
remain until morning will soften the waste material so it can be
evacuated easily in the morning.

Constipation never should be neglected as it carries in its train a long
line of disorders, as hemorrhoids (piles), abscesses, and intestinal
obstruction.

Indigestion and constipation frequently are bosom friends. How often
indigestion is a result of nervous strain is perhaps seldom realized. A
business man eats his lunch and other meals in a hurry, with his mind on
his business. His energies are being consumed by his brain and very
little is left to be used in the digestion of his food. One never should
eat when tired and nervous. Take a few moments' absolute rest before
meals. If possible lie down and relax all muscles for a few moments.
Then eat your meal slowly and if possible have some pleasant companion
who will talk with you on subjects not connected with your business
cares. You will be surprised to note the improvement in your digestion
and incidentally in your tendency to constipation.

For the noon meal, office workers should eat only light and easily
digested food. Eat your heaviest meal after the work for the day is
finished and the blood which has been required by the brain can be
spared to the stomach. People doing manual labor that requires physical
strength need, and can digest, a heavy noonday meal but the requirements
of the brain workers are quite different.

Many girls break down on account of lack of sufficient nourishment.
Coffee and rolls for breakfast, ice cream and rolls for lunch and a
sandwich and coffee for dinner is not sufficient food for any working
girl. And yet that is about the diet of hundreds of girls. Often it is
impossible for her to provide more, for when a girl must pay for her
board, room, clothes and laundry from her salary of five or six dollars
a week, sufficient food becomes an impossibility. Many girls actually
are slowly starving on this account. When the wheels of progress make
it possible for every working girl to have a comfortable home and
sufficient nourishing food many of the social problems will right
themselves.

CHAPTER V

THE BLACK PLAGUES

I promised to explain to you what I meant by the black plagues. It is
strange when anything is as widely spread as are these diseases that so
few people know anything about them, or realize their importance. At one
time epidemics of typhoid fever were regarded as a revelation of the
wrath