Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/96

96 sufficient fluids are not taken, and nature's calls are ignored until a more convenient time, and then forgotten, a drying up and hardening process ensues. When later the movement is had, only a portion of the faeces passes out, the balance remaining to clog up the colon. Next day a little more is added, and so on, until a case of chronic constipation is manifested, with all its attendant evils, such as dyspepsia, biliousness, liver troubles, kidney troubles—in fact, all diseases are encouraged, and many of them directly caused by this filthy condition of the colon. Half of the cases of female trouble are caused or aggravated by this condition.

The absorption by the blood of the faecal matter in the system, is occasioned in two ways, first, the desire and need of the body for fluids; second, a desperate effort of nature to throw off the waste matter by the skin, the kidneys and the lungs. Foul perspiration and foul breath are often caused by this effort of nature to get rid of what should have passed from the colon. Nature recognizes the great source of danger of allowing this foul mass to stay in the system, and so resorts to the desperate plan of throwing it off in other ways, even at the risk of half-poisoning the blood and body in so doing. The best proof of the number of physical ailments and disease caused by this unnatural state of the colon, is the fact that when the cause is once removed people begin to recover from many ailments apparently unconnected with the cause. In addition to the fact that diseases are caused and encouraged by this state of the colon, it is a fact that one is far more likely to contract contagious diseases, and diseases