Herself | Page 9

circulation are
improved. In some cases we find what is called a phantom tumor.
There really is no tumor, although the symptoms may be such that even
reliable physicians are misled. The symptoms are due to a nervous
condition. These phantom tumors have given many a quack a
reputation for removing tumors without the use of the knife.
A carcinoma or cancer is a malignant tumor, that is, one that tends to

grow worse and to reappear if it apparently is removed. The
reappearance may be in the same place or in an entirely different
portion of the body. Cancer of the uterus is not uncommon in women.
It frequently follows neglect of some injury. For example, it will appear
on the site of an unrepaired tear. It most commonly comes after the
menopause. The change that is undergone at that time seems to stir
things up and bring to light any neglected injury. This is another reason
why every woman at the menopause should undergo a thorough
examination and have any defect repaired, thus avoiding much of the
possibility of trouble. A frequent symptom of carcinoma of the uterus is
hemorrhage at irregular times after the menopause. Any woman who
has such a condition would be wise if she immediately repaired to a
physician and determined the cause of the hemorrhage. In the
beginning it is possible to remove a cancer, but later it becomes so
involved in the surrounding structures that its removal is impossible.
You may think I am trying to increase business for the physicians but
in reality my advice, if taken, would lessen their practice. It is another
application of "a stitch in time saves nine." In the beginning almost all
these diseases can be corrected with very little trouble, while if
neglected the process is much slower. The probabilities are that the
doctor will have the case later, if not consulted early, but instead of a
few office treatments he will have an expensive operation. So, you see,
I really am trying to save you doctors' bills when I urge early and
thorough examinations. There is a peculiar thing about the human race.
A machine will get out of order and the owner will send for an expert
machinist to repair it--not attempting to patch it up himself. But when
these bodies of ours, the most wonderful and complicated of machines,
get out of repair we try to patch them up ourselves or try various
remedies recommended by those who know worse than nothing about
the physical machinery. Then we think we are saving doctors' bills,
when at the same time we are spending twice as much on questionable
repairs--patent medicines, which often do more harm than good.
Frequently they contain stimulants which produce a mythical
improvement but leave the system worse off than before.
CHAPTER IV

CONSTIPATION--HEMORRHOIDS
A regular daily movement of the bowels is necessary to health. Much
of the illness in the world might have been avoided if the victims had
taken better care of the excretory organs. One of the first questions a
physician asks a patient is, "How are your bowels, do they move
regularly every day?" In some cases that is the first time the patient has
thought of them, and he has to think some time before he can remember
just when and how often his bowels did move. Then perhaps he is not
sure. In a great many cases it is a routine practice with physicians to
give a "good cleaning out," that is, to give a thorough laxative. Many
times this is all the treatment required and in other cases it only is
combined with a little intestinal antiseptic to further carry out the
cleaning process.
The most common cause of constipation is irregularity in going to the
toilet. When the desire for defecation comes, we are too busy and
postpone it until some more convenient time, which time may be too
late. Nature is the best judge as to when the bowels are ready to be
emptied. If we do not obey her call, we must take the consequences.
When the waste material is ready to be voided, it is in a semi-fluid state,
but, if it remains in the intestines too long the water is absorbed and the
waste material is left in a hard mass which is expelled with difficulty.
Not only that, but the desire to expel it soon passes. Nature, finding we
do not respond to her call, ceases to notify us.
If the waste material is allowed to remain in the bowels, not only the
water is absorbed but with it some of the poisons from the waste
material, which are taken up by the blood and carried to all parts of the
system, causing a great deal of trouble and