I called as I agreed to do the next day, the seventh day since the case came under my management, and the fourteenth day from the beginning of the disease.  The sick man was out of humor.  To my question, “Would you like something to eat!” he drawled, “Na-a-aw!  I never intend to eat any more; but I would like to know when my bowels are going to move.”  Of course I could not tell him any more than I had told him before, namely, that under such circumstances they usually require from fourteen to twenty-eight days.

From this time on every day was much the same; no elevation in temperature, and the pulse ranged from eighty to occasionally one hundred; no pain, sleep good, that is, as good as people generally sleep who are on a continuous fast—­under a continuous fast the sleep is good but not heavy nor long at a time.

It is a fact that when these cases are properly handled they are not sick after the first week; they do not look sick; they get to thinking that it is folly to stay in bed and live without food, and of course their neighbors know that there isn’t anything the matter with them; that the doctor is starving them to death.  Quite a number of my patients have brought themselves near death’s door from disobeying instructions and taking the advice of knowing neighbors.  They were persuaded to “eat”—­“eat all you want, for the doctor will not know it.”

This is one disease that will give the disloyalty of the patient away every time.

On the morning of the nineteenth day of his sickness, and the twelfth day of my services, I called to see the sick man, and before I could ask him a question he shot out his hand toward me and exclaimed, “My bowels moved at four o’clock this morning!  I want a beefsteak for my breakfast!” I congratulated him on his fine condition and ordered him a dish of mutton broth.  This disgusted him thoroughly, and his reply was in kind:  “A dish of broth!  After fasting two days on my own prescription, and then twelve days on yours, I am to be rewarded with a dish of broth.”  I explained that he had a large abscess cavity that would require several days to empty, collapse and draw together, and if he should eat solid foods too soon he would run the risk of cultivating chronic appendicitis—­recurring appendicitis.  I advised him to live on liquid foods for three or four days, and after that he could have solid foods if he would practice thorough mastication.

The action from the bowels had been saved for me; there was an ordinary chamber half full; it looked to me like at least a half gallon of fecal matter, pus and blood; it was dreadfully offensive.  Six hours after the first movement I was informed that he had another movement very similar in quantity and consistency; this movement I did not see, for I did not visit the man after the morning of the nineteenth.  He left for his home on the morning of the twenty-third and has had excellent health ever since.