It is a well-known, fact that our environments, faulty diet, indoor and sedentary occupations, unhygienic surroundings, the hurry and stress of modern life, our emotions and sorrows, all upset the proper functioning of our involuntary organs long before any other tissue in the body and affect the mind to make it lose its psychic balance. They have a certain amount of reserve energy which is exhausted by the time we pass beyond the threshold of middle life, and the "first system to decline under the stress of middle age activities is the digestive system whose hollow viscera receive the least toning up from the flaccid abdominal wall, the muscles of which are no longer subjected to contraction to keep up their elasticity.

The middle-aged man takes his meals hurriedly; often they are merely bolted down without proper mastication, in order to be punctual in his office duties or business engagements. Calls of nature are often suppressed due to lack of time thus leading to a stretching of the walls of the bowels so as to accommodate the accumulated waste matter and this interferes with their normal
peristaltic rhythm. The effects of all these culminate in a faulty digestion and a defective bowel action due to the enfeebled musculature of the neglected intestinal tract.

Usually the chief site of the trouble is the large intestine or colon for it is here that the peristaltic wave of the bowels exhausts itself to its maximum limit. This results in constipation—the precursor of much of the illness that human flesh is heir to—which is either ignored or met by doses of patented pills or purgatives. These for a time certainly relieve the constipation but it- is like whipping a jaded horse to action without properly grooming it. This is a wrong thing to do. We must tone our intestines and make them once again perform their former rhythmic movements. The ultimate result of neglect on our part is that the intestines become mere flaccid hollow tubes stretched and filled with the waste matter of many days which, not being evacuated regularly from the body, forms a suitable nisus for putrefactive processes. The flaccid intestines under the load of waste matter sink down as far as possible to the lowest part of the abdominal cavity—the pelvis where their crowding impedes any peristaltic activity. In medical parlance it is entroptosis which favors chronic constipation.

With entroptosis the stomach which is really a receptacle for food for digestion is also stretched thus impairing its motility. The semi-digested food stagnates in it for a longer time than normal and promotes fermentative processes generating gases which dilate the stomach. Its tone is thus lost by stretching. This stagnation of food produces heartburn due to the irritation of the mucous lining of the stomach
and causes indigestion. The dilation of the stomach necessitates in its turn more intake of food to satisfy the pangs of hunger as the latter is appeased only by pressure of food on the walls of the stomach. This is a physiological fact.

The generation of fermentative and putrefactive processes in the stomach and large intestine respectively produces many poisonous substances in excessive quantities which are beyond the capacity of the liver either to neutralize or hold back. The liver which acts as a refinery for all the absorbed products of the digestive tract soon gets choked up with these poisonous putrefactive substances and so allows them to escape into the blood stream and from thence these poisonous substances are circulated to every part of the body producing symptoms of auto-intoxication. They are manifested by a tiredness of feeling, heaviness on waking, headaches, sleeplessness, giddiness, mental depression, and irritability of temper and a host of other symptoms.

These absorbed poisons, sooner or later, completely damage the circulatory and nervous systems. Of the circulatory system the blood vessels bear the greatest brunt. They lose their elasticity and get thickened and hardened. The healthy condition of the heart and the blood vessels is a necessity for the correct maintenance and nutrition of organs and tissues by keeping them in constant action. The pumping movement of the heart drives the blood stream into the blood vessels which are distended and the blood exerts a certain amount of pressure on their walls. This pressure brings about a recoil action of the healthy elastic arterial walls and so propels the blood forward step by step due to the dilation and contraction of the blood vessels. In this way the blood carrying the nutrient material with it is taken forward to every tiny nook and corner of the body feeding the tissues and maintaining the balance of the metabolic processes. The loss of elasticity of the arterial walls with the added disadvantages of general lack of physical fitness and flabby tissues causes the pressure in the vessels to become abnormal. It tends to fall and the system in its attempt to readjust these over-reaches itself and so sends the pressure up too high.

This rise of pressure above the normal goes on unsuspected till a sudden fit of giddiness while at work disables a man for the time being or he suddenly drops down dead with a fit of apoplexy. The giddiness makes him seek medical aid, his blood pressure is measured with a special instrument and the true facts are at last known. Thus the devil of "high blood-pressure" unconsciously makes its appearance in the prime of life at a time when one is full of hopes of a greater and better future. His high blood-pressure puts him completely out of action and brings on premature ageing and an early breakdown of his whole system. To prevent this, blood-pressure measurements should be taken regularly during middle age and a record kept of them for estimating one's general fitness just as a record if often kept of our weight and temperature whenever there is sufficient reason for doing so. This will enable a person to take suitable precautions and ward off the attacks of apoplexy, etc., and escape their consequences.