WOMAN A CONSTIPATED ANIMAL
From the Library of Health, 1916

Woman a Constipated Animal.—The eminent Dr. Goodell once said: “Woman is a constipated animal.” While we do not desire to class the gentler sex as an animal, still this statement contains a great deal of truth, for by far the greater majority of women are constipated.

Causes.—This troublesome state can be attributed to a number of causes, the most frequent of which is leading a sedentary life; omitting daily exercise, which tends to excite the secretions of the bowels and liver to their proper activity. Another very frequent cause is laziness pure and simple, the patient failing to go to stool when informed by nature that such should occur.

Insufficieny [sic] of Closet.—In the teeming tenement house of any of our large cities there is usually but one closet, and that is invariably a cesspool, wet and foul, reeking with filth, poisoned by noisome stenches, defiled by lewd couplets or by obscene cuts, indecent from thin partitions and wide chinks, or from being preoccupied by one of the opposite sex. Under such conditions what woman can avoid schooling herself into the habit of resisting the evacuation of her bowels?