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
