This is, under certain circumstances, an excellent laxative, operating in all probability, mainly, if not exclusively, by the slight irritation occasioned by the coarseness and angularity of its particles. A tablespoonful will generally prove laxative; but it is very seldom used in a separate state. in the form, however, of bran-bread, bran-crackers, bran-mush, etc., it is much, and often very advantageously used, as a laxative article of diet. When we consider that the lower animals fed on grain are seldom troubled with constipation, and call to mind that they eat the grain in its natural state, with its outer covering unseparated, we may, I think, justly conclude, that this kind of food was intended to be thus employed; and that the careful separation of all the coarser particles from our refined flour is one of the injurious results of high civilization upon health. We are apt to commiserate the peasants of Europe who are fed on black bread; but the probability is that they would be quite unwilling to exchange with us, as their homely bread is both more wholesome, and more agreeable to the taste than ours. Sometimes bran-bread, etc. is made by mixing bran with ordinary refined flour; but a better plan is to make use of the unbolted meal. The bread thus prepared is coarser and darker than the ordinary kind, but is sweeter, and to many quite as palatable. it is peculiarly adapted to dyspeptic persons, with enfeebled or inert stomach and bowels; and should not be employed where there is any suspicion of the existence of gastric or intestinal inflammation.