od close-at-hand"; watch any male cook, or better
still take note of the man of the house on a Sunday. He spends a good
part of his day making raids on the ice chest, and it is a frequent
enough result to find him "logy" on Monday.

Furthermore, in the household without a servant, the housewife rarely
eats her meal in peace and comfort. She jumps up and down from each
course, and immediately after the meal she rarely relaxes or rests. The
dishes _must_ be cleared away and washed, and this keeps from her that
peace of mind so necessary for good digestion.

An increasing refinement of taste adds to these difficulties. If the
family eat in the dining room, have separate plates for each course, and
various utensils for each dish, have snowy linen instead of
oilcloth,--then there is more work, more strain, less real comfort. Much
of what we call refinement is a cruel burden and entails a grievous
waste of human energy and happiness.

An important result of the sedentary life is constipation. Woman, under
the best of circumstances, is more liable to this difficulty than her
mate, just as the human being is more liable to it than the four-legged
beast. Man's upright position has not been well adjusted by appropriate
structures. Childbearing, lack of vigorous exercise, the corset, and the
hustle and bustle of the early morning hours so that regular habits are
not formed, bring about a sluggish bowel. Indeed it is a cynicism
amongst physicians that the proper definition of woman is "a constipated
biped."

While it is a lay habit to ascribe overmuch to constipation, it is also
true that it does definite harm. For many people a loaded bowel acts as
a mood depressant, as illustrated by the Voltaire story. For others it
destroys the appetite and brings about an uneasiness that affects the
efficiency. Whether there is a poisoning of the organism, an
autointoxication, in such a condition is not a settled matter. But the
importance of the constipation habit lies chiefly in its effect upon
mood and energy, in its relation to neurasthenia.

These factors, the nature of housework, monotony and the results of
sedentary life bear with especial weight upon the woman of little
means. It is absolutely untrue that nervousness is a disease of wealth.
There are cases enough where lack of purpose and lack of routine tasks,
as in the case of wealthy women, lead to a rapid demoralization and
deenergization. It is also true that the search for p