Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/348



Take of—Best picked Alexandria Senna, one ounce; Best Figs, two ounces; Best Raisins (stoned), two ounces:

All chopped very fine. The size of a nutmeg or two to be occasionally eaten.

Or, one or two teaspoonfuls of compound confection of senna (lenitive electuary) may occasionally, early in the morning, be taken. Or, for a change, a teaspoonful of Henry's magnesia, in half a tumblerful of warm water. If this should not be sufficiently active, a teaspoonful of Epsom salts should be given with the magnesia. A Seidlitz powder forms another safe and mild aperient; or one or two compound rhubarb pills may be given at bedtime. The following prescription for a pill, where an aperient is absolutely necessary, is a mild, gentle, and effective one for the purpose:

Take of—Extract of Socotrine Aloes, eight grains; Compound Extract of Colocynth, forty-eight grains: Hard Soap, twenty-four grains; Treacle, a sufficient quantity:

To make twenty-four Pills. One or two to be taken at bedtime occasionally.

But, after all, the best opening medicines are—cold ablutions every morning of the whole body; attention to diet; variety of food; bran-bread; grapes; stewed prunes; [For the best way of stewing prunes, see question 244.] French plums; Muscatel raisins; figs; fruit, both cooked and raw—if it be ripe and sound; oatmeal porridge; lentil powder, in the form of Du Barry's Arabica Revalenta; vegetables of all kinds, especially spinach; exercise in the open air; early rising; daily visiting the water closet at a certain hour—there is nothing keeps the bowels open so regularly and well as establishing the habit of visiting the water-closet at a certain hour every