The abdominal and pelvic organs are cushioned or held in place somewhat by the network of fatty tissue that surrounds them, and the rectum is no exception to the rule. The outer or serous wall is surrounded by an abundance of loose areolar tissue, which is divided into cellular spaces. When this tissue also is invaded by inflammation, the condition is spoken of as peri­proc­titis; and we have a result somewhat similar to that which occurs in the areolar tissue just under the mucous membrane and integument, as previously described.

As the inflammatory product is discharged into this spongy or fatty connective tissue it is slowly forced in some direction, which is naturally downward, if not too much obstructed by firm tissue; at all events, it follows the line of least resistance and forms usually quite a large channel and several cavities along its course. The channel may begin at an elevation of four or more inches on the outside of the rectum (Fig. 5). Should it form in front of the rectum, the seminal vesicles (15) and the prostate gland (16) would suffer greatly by its presence.

As the inflammatory process burrows its way downward, it finally reaches the soft fatty connective tissue under the skin. It then continues along this in one or more directions for a distance of two or more inches. Several of these long, large pus-less channels may exist for many years, or for a lifetime, without sufficient evidence of their existence along their route accurately to locate them. Itching, pain, and color of the skin often indicate the presence of such a channel under the integument. The author has frequently found large channels extending up along the outer rectal wall for four inches, and extending out into the deep tissues of the buttocks in various directions, without making their presence and ravages known to the victim.

Such numerous pathological conditions have led the author to conclude that an abscess just under the skin and the discharge of pus are merely incidents in the history of such maladies. Think of it: your body may be bored with channels or holes of varying diameters and lengths, while you yourself may be ignorant of what is occurring! The mucous membrane may be lifted from the connective tissue for the whole length of the rectum, and the skin about the anus may also be in this condition. You know that your health is not good, but you are ignorant of the cause. The formation of pus at some period of the channel’s inroads, or of an abscess, would seem a kindly act of Nature, for the presence of so serious a disturber to health would thus become known.

I have not overdrawn this picture of peri­proc­titis and of submucous tissue channels. The victims could scarcely be worse off than they are. I want boys and girls, young men and young women, to learn the facts concerning the local dangers of proctitis; for, when they once realize the seriousness of this disease because of its many grave symptoms, they will give it proper attention before these effects manifest themselves. You cannot neglect so important a portion of your body as the anus and rectum and not seriously endanger the organs that lie close to them. No wonder so many men are troubled with inflammation and induration of the prostate gland. The percentage of such cases would be greatly reduced were proctitis and peri­proc­titis denied the existence they now enjoy for years, and often for a lifetime.

In view of all that has been advanced concerning these local pathological conditions, is it strange that almost everybody is con­sti­pated, and that we need some simple sovereign aid to further the scientific treatment of the physician—an aid such as the enema has proved to be?

CHAPTER IV.
Undue Retention of Gas and Feces in the Sigmoid Flexure.

In the previous chapters attention was called especially to the lower portion of the rectum and the anus. In this chapter we will consider the sigmoid flexure, which, when diseased, is often dilated, dislocated, and depressed, a pathological condition somewhat similar to that found in the lower portion of the rectum and the anus.

The illustration on page 29 shows the normal relations of the rectum and the sigmoid flexure; also the whole colon. 7 marks the beginning of the sigmoid flexure, and 6 its upper end. The reader will note the four sharp curves or flexures of this organ,—from 6 to 7,—which forms in health a normal and most convenient receptacle for feces, and which, like the bladder, can be emptied at regular intervals.

Unless the system were able in some way to eliminate the waste and poisonous matter it had generated within six hours, it would fatally poison itself.

Those internal ventilators, the lungs, and those external ducts, the pores, are constantly at work purifying the body; and they are actively assisted by the kidneys and the bladder. Observation extending over many years of practice induces me to believe that among those who suffer from chronic con­sti­pa­tion two-thirds to three-fourths of the fecal mass is taken into the system and eliminated by the kidneys, mucous membrane, and skin. Diseases of the above organs are numerous and seemingly incurable from the fact that their common cause has not been discovered and treated properly. Were it not for these organs steadily at work, the labor of the bowels would be of little avail. But while the importance of the former cannot be ignored, it must be conceded that the most important of all the eliminating organs are the bowels, for their function is to discharge not only the waste solids but also a great amount of waste liquids and gases as well.

Undue fermentation of the ingesta (the aliment taken into the system) generates poisons of more or less virulence; it must therefore be obvious that a clean intestinal canal is necessary after every meal to further the normal digestive process.

Very often the outlet of the sigmoid flexure is obstructed. Figures 6 and 7 are shown to make the cause of this obstruction more clear. In Figure 7 we see the longitudinal and transverse fibers that form the wall of the rectum. In all cases of chronic ob­sti­pa­tion, the muscular structure of the anus, rectum, and frequently of a portion of the sigmoid flexure is invaded with chronic inflammation of a very severe and serious character.

Though constant attention should be given to the much more important organ, the rectum, practically none is given it. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Again, no doctor would diagnose an inflamed limb as paralysis, atony, etc., and dose the victim with nux vomica, tonics, physic, etc., in the hope of thereby healing it. Yet, with singular fatuity, this absurd diagnosis and treatment is given when the lower bowel is invaded with chronic inflammation.

Let the common-sense reader inform himself concerning his organism. Let him remember that he has within muscular organs that demand exactly the same attention when diseased as those without. This fact is especially important for the sufferer from con­sti­pa­tion or semi-con­sti­pa­tion to know.

Were the anus, rectum, and sigmoid flexure one continuous straight tube, the muscular action in the process of defecation would not be as complex as it is, since then the feces would drop right down and out. But these parts have so many curves and angles that when disease invades their interior they accentuate their folds and valves by contracting and do not readily respond to the nerve demand for complex, muscular, snakelike movements, when evacuation is desired. In this unreadiness to respond they cast into confusion all the functions of the whole complicated organism, all parts of which are necessarily interdependent. A wise provision of Mother Nature are these curves, angles, and valves, for they prevent the sudden dropping of the contents of the colon down to the anal orifice—a possibility that would greatly embarrass us during social and business hours.

The accompanying figure shows the rectum dissected at its upper end from the sigmoid flexure. This portion of the rectum is smaller than the lower two-thirds of the organ. Now, it is this lessened diameter of the gut that is an aid to the sigmoid flexure in its capacity as a receptacle, but a most decided hindrance when it is diseased—since it will positively inhibit the passage of feces and gases, thereby occasioning a distention of the sigmoid flexure (ob­sti­pa­tion) because of a detention of the contents, which then weights the flexure down upon the rectum. Thus we see exemplified how an aid may turn into a hindrance, as we already have observed, in an unduly contracted anal vent.

When these muscular-tube organs are invaded by disease, these very curves, valves, and bends of anus, rectum, and sigmoid flexure are responsible for at least nine-tenths of the ills that affect humanity from the cradle to the grave—ills directly due to self-poisoning, technically known as auto-infection and auto-intoxication, the fashionable name of which is neurasthenia: a weakening of involuntary and voluntary nervous systems through lack of vent from irritating poisons, flatulency, and of course defective metabolism or nutrition. A better name would be vaso-motor neurasthenia.

After these anatomical and physiological points have been noted, it is to be hoped that the reader has grasped the idea of how easily this portion of the bowels, when diseased, can prevent the normal descent of the feces and gases accumulated just above the diseased portion of the gut. It should also be easy to understand how a portion of the unduly retained feces may pass out, but in so doing be the cause of increased irritation and consequent contraction of the muscular tube, preventing thus any further passage of feces from its receptacle. Usually a portion of the escaping feces is caught and held in the rectum itself, converting the rectum into a receptacle.

It is just here that the practical application of the principles deduced must come in. Let my professional brethren as well as all victims of bowel disease consider the following question, and then all will be clear: Since normal feces contain about 75 per cent. water, is there any harm, nay, is there not decided benefit, in suddenly liquefying the imprisoned mass to, say, 99 per cent.—whether disease exist or not?

When disease exists we simply desire to open the contracted or obstructed canal. What can be better, in a therapeutic line, than the kindly distending influence of warm water to overcome the spasmodic closure of the diseased tube? In addition to the gentle dilatation the injected water occasions, the water creates or calls into activity the lost nervous impulse to evacuate, which impulse is a step toward the restoration of the lost normality.

Under the benignant influence of the water injected in the large intestine there comes a desire to expel it, which, when responded to, carries with it the feces so long imprisoned, and at the same time divests the walls of the intestine of the inevitable incrustations.

Thus, with purifying water, the foul pool is emptied, and the parts are cleansed so thoroughly that nothing is left to vex the inflamed tissue.

Is there any sane person that can offer one valid objection to the use of depuratory enemas in cases in which the normal function of the bowels is lost through abnormal changes brought about by chronic disease?

CHAPTER V.
Rebellion of our outraged Internal Economy.

The small intestine is that portion of the alimentary canal which begins at the stomach and ends at the large intestine. Its usual length is twenty feet. The diameter, which at the upper portion (duodenum) is two inches, gradually becomes less, until at the lower end it is but one inch.

Now, the length of the inner coat of this small intestine—the mucous membrane—is about double that of the intestine itself. Think of wearing a coat twice as long as yourself! How do you think this is accomplished in the case of the muscular tube under con­sid­er­ation? Well, Nature, having a most peculiar function to perform, has thrown this mucous coat or tube into a thousand folds (valvulæ conniventes, or “winking valves”). These folds form valves, occupying from one-third to one-half the circum­ference of the bowel. The greatest width of each fold is at the center, where it measures from a quarter to half an inch. Over this great expanse of mucous membrane we find studded ten million five hundred thousand intestinal villi, whose office it is to absorb the food substances in their passage through the canal.

Those that have observed the anatomical illustrations of the small intestines must have been struck by their apparently inextricably tangled convolutions. In life, these convolutions are constantly changing their locations, as though they were a mass of worms.

Consider this tube, for it is really unique. Note the longitudinal muscular bands (Figs. 12 and 13). We find this tube to be five feet long when the surface made by the circular bands is measured, and four feet long when that made by the longitudinal bands is measured. Now, the four feet of surface must of course contract the five feet. Well, in the tube under con­sid­er­ation, the musculo-areolo mucous tube is thrown into circular puckerings in short sections, between which are deep transverse creases, each bounded by prominent bulges. (Fig. 13.) An inspection of the bore of the tube shows a sharp ridge corresponding to each depression of the outer surface, and a large recess collocated with each external protrusion. This external and internal appearance of the large intestine reminds one somewhat of the flexible hard-rubber tubing used as a conduit for electric wire in houses.

The sacculated pouches thus formed by the shortening of the bowel may become abnormally distended, and resemble the proper receptacle for feces—the sigmoid flexure. Even the rectum, in cases of chronic con­sti­pa­tion, is usually enormously distended, owing to the overloading or filling up of the bowel with feces.

Finding this, the question inevitably is, What is the best agent for cleansing this marvelously sensitive canal, twenty-five feet long, whose mucous membrane extends forty-five feet? No one would think of taking, if he could, the foul sewer in his hands, and shaking it, fold upon fold, with the faint yet fond hope of sterilizing it. How can any mode of physical culture meet the requirements for effecting a cure of ulcerative proctitis and colitis, to say nothing about keeping the bowels sweet and clean? Chronic, subacute, and acute inflammation, accompanied with ulceration, located in any part of the body, requires rest to overcome the fever and congestion. Muscular exercise irritates and inflames the diseased parts.

Another form of “physical culture” would put into the bowels all sorts of stuff that cannot be digested, such as bran, crushed seeds, shells, raw food, etc., that set up excessive muscular action and secretion of mucus as the improper stuff passes down and out. In the sacred name of hygiene, this new cathartic remedy is prescribed and taken. Seeking relief from the painful effects, the patient finds that these “remedies” make the disease and its symptoms worse. Hygienic fool-killers are, like the poor, always with us.

You are aware of the irritation that a grain of sand will set up when it comes in contact with the mucous membrane of the eye. Then can you not realize that you will torment the forty-five feet of intestinal mucous membrane with like indigestible stuff? It is estimated that ten per cent. of the really suitable food is residue matter with which the digestive tract has to deal and get rid of with as much economy and as little friction as possible. Then why increase this residue twenty or fifty per cent.?

More than nine-tenths of the human race have been content to depend on comparatively violent excitants, such as drugs, coarse food, and muscular exercise, etc., to relieve the bowels of the feces, liquids, and gases of a most foul character—the foulness due to putrid fermentation and undue retention.

When will these prescribers and partakers ever learn that bile bouncers and peristaltic persuaders have an immense journey before them when they start to remove the foul accumu­la­tion of feces from the sigmoid flexure and ballooned rectum? For, be it remembered, the normal receptacle for feces is twenty-four feet four inches from the stomach, and the abnormal receptacle twenty-four feet eleven inches—within two inches of the vent of the body!

Surely quite a degree of mental con­sti­pa­tion must have existed in both the prescribers and the partakers to think such thick and dense thoughts as are represented by these bouncers and persuaders. So you would cleanse the bowels with such unclean, poisonous, and irritating things! What amazing hope born of ignorance! Outraged Nature cries: “How long! how long! how long will my ‘inards’ be so abused in the name of cleanliness and yet remain so unclean? Ye benighted mortals, if ye would listen to me, your Mother, I would give ye a pure and wholesome prescription, for I would prescribe equal parts of enlightenment and water well mixed, and advise ye to take a portion of it fore and a portion of it aft, per os (mouth) and per anus. Thus and thus alone would I prescribe for ye; such and such alone is the way for ye to do; purify to cure, or cure by purifying.”

Constipation must not continue, for it means not only the clogging up of the large intestine with the foul sewage of the system, but also the drying of that sewage, which latter process implies the absorption of poison. Now that you are in this condition, Medicus steps up and prescribes a cathartic mixed with belladonna or opium, or both. These latter are meant to quiet the mournful cry of outraged Nature when the cathartic invades its sacred precincts. And it may be noted, by the way, that though belladonna, atropine, morphia, etc., tend to dry up the secretions of the mucous membrane and make matters worse by making them still more arid, still the action of the cathartic is usually so powerful that after the free fight with the pain soothers it triumphs, and produces a free flow of watery secretion into the dried, impacted mass of the bowel.

Does it not stand to reason that the greater portion of the liquid in which the feces were dissolved and had fermented is re-absorbed into the system? Why should the poor victim of proctitis and cathartics wonder why he has gout, rheumatism, and disease of the kidneys, bladder, lungs, liver, stomach, nerves; why he has neurasthenia, debility, feebleness, loss of memory, inability to fix and hold the attention upon a single line of thought, apprehensions, etc.? His wonder is childish, for deep in his heart he knows that he poisoned himself. He knows this, but it seems that he must be reminded of the fact that there is a better way to remove the accumulated mass from the large intestine, and to prevent in future the undue retention of feces, liquids, and gases in abnormal sacs or pouches. The way that Nature prescribes is the resort daily, two or three times, to the enema.

When the injected water reaches the imprisoned and dried feces, the crust is loosened from its holdings and the mass is moved toward the exit by the expulsive effort of the bowels. Previously the bowels were helpless with their load. As the sudden flood of water is expelled it carries with it the inspissated feces; whereupon the subconscious personal Ego, who is the superintendent of the digestive apparatus and functions, congratulates himself on the delightfully refreshing manner in which the local disturber has been ousted.

Such is the satisfactory decision of the arbitrator—Enlightened Nature. No longer need we bow to Medicus or to any other kind of “cuss,” whether styled hygiene or physical culture. Arbitration of this sort makes life worth living.

Now for Nature’s benediction: “May that feeling of freedom from uncleanliness, internal and external, be with you constantly, and this double blessing make your joys flow so fast that in their rapidity they blend into a sun and radiate from your rejuvenated physical being.”

CHAPTER VI.
Gaseous Obesity and our Roly-polies.

Is there any human being so ignorant that he cannot understand that when food stuffs in the gastro-intestinal canal ferment and putrefy they thereby generate toxic (poisonous) gaseous matter, volatile fatty acids, and putrid feces; that such matter, acids, and feces are rapidly absorbed by the system, and that, if the system does not readily eliminate them by way of the bowels, kidneys, and mucous membrane, they will tend to bring on one or more forms of acute or chronic disease?

Gas is matter in its most rarefied state—a state that permits its easy entrance into all the tissues of the body, where it perverts by its presence and toxic effect the normal function of all the organs. Besides its poisonous infection, it distends or bloats the stomach, bowels, and tissues—a fact especially noticeable in the abdominal region, giving the appearance of corpulency or obesity to many, when really it is only abdominal ballooning or gaseous obeseness. Roly-polies—and there are a great many of them—will have their pride greatly hurt by accounting for their condition in this way, but the truth must be told and they might as well face the facts first as last. Gaseous obesity, or borborygmus, is spoken of popularly as wind in the stomach and bowels. No wonder the roly-poly is sensitive on the subject, for this “wind” occasions rumbling sounds, eructations, and offensive odors—all of which are a great annoyance to the sufferer from dilated, displaced, and unclean digestive apparatus.

Besides being generated in the system, gases may be swallowed during the act of eating, in the form of air (oxygen and nitrogen), and in liquids containing carbonic acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, etc.

Micro-organisms swallowed with the food will occasion fermentation of the contents of the stomach and bowels, which if unduly retained become excessive, foul, and toxic—therefore extremely harmful to the system.

The gases generated in the stomach are the following: carbonic acid, hydrogen, hydrochloric, ammonia, sulphuretted hydrogen, marsh gas, etc. They are partly absorbed or thrown off by eructations, or they pass into the duodenum or small intestine.

Gases are found throughout the small and the large intestine. These are the result of both the normal and the abnormal digestive fermentation and bacterial decomposition of the ingesta or food stuffs. Some of the gases are passed into the intestines from the blood by diffusion.

The production of gas is more copious in the upper portion of the small intestine and becomes less rapid and abundant as the large intestine is reached. As formed or found in the intestines, the gases are: carbonic acid, hydrogen, marsh, ammonia, nitrogen, sulphuretted hydrogen, and sulphate of ammonia.

Considering the large amount of abnormal gases generated in the bowels and which abnormally distend the abdominal walls for several inches and press upon the heart and lungs, and considering the small amount passed out as flatus, their entrance into the tissues of the body must be very rapid and harmful.

Stop the habitual putre­fac­tion and mal-digestion, and then the formation of toxic feces, gases, and volatile acid will speedily cease. Then the erstwhile roly-polies will shrink in circum­ference four or more inches, necessitating the refitting of their garments to the new and better order of things.

Much has been written about the distention of the rectum, sigmoid flexure, and colon from the undue accumulation of feces. The fecal distention of the gut may extend along the intestine for from three to nine inches or more, which is a very grave matter indeed. But why is so much attention given to a few inches of impacted feces dilating a portion of the bowel, and none whatever to the prevention or elimination of gaseous matter that distends the whole gastro-intestinal canal to such an extent that the body is tightly inflated and the median parts of the belly bulge out like a balloon?

Cattle raisers are conversant with the gaseous inflation of their animals, and have to resort to the knife to puncture the stomach to permit the gas to escape; otherwise fatal results would soon follow. Some animals, even, like most human beings, are intemperate in eating. When they consume too much grass they suffer from flatulency and colic, and require drastic treatment.

Rather than let some worthy men and women die, ought we not at times to adopt the ranchman’s treatment for flatus? This harsh means, however, might be avoided by inventive science. Overfed, con­sti­pated, inflated man, victim of habitual flatulency, could easily have small gas valves inserted here and there along his gastro-intestinal canal—one, say, to relieve the stomach of toxic gas, another for the appendix region, and still another in the hernial region of the abdomen. Suppose overfeeders were to adopt the gas-valve fad, and discontinue the habit of using cathartics, soda, charcoal, peppermint, pepsin, whiskey, etc., as means of relief! How in the world can a drug aid digestion when taken into a foul, gaseous, and feces-clogged canal?

A chemist cannot get the definite results he seeks unless he have the right chemicals and proper vessels. Just so with the spiritual Ego and his systemic chemistry of food: he needs a clean and healthy digestive apparatus for proper assimilation and elimination. But he gets careless, allows it to get foul, and then insincerely expresses astonishment that the chemical combinations are not such as one could wish or expect. Other chemists, called doctors or druggists, come along and dose the poor victim of his own carelessness until they have ruined his apparatus completely. They have got to live, of course; and it is their business to see that he does not escape so long as they can help it.

Sometimes there is a reassertion of common sense; the poor victim becomes disgusted with himself and his credulous acceptance of the doctor’s dictation and his fatuous swilling of the druggist’s decoctions. He gets tired of chronic ill-health and bowel troubles, and, lo and behold! he does the simplest and most sensible thing in the world—a thing he ought to have done at the very start, or before he ever had the least trouble: He thoroughly washes out his alimentary canal with pure or antiseptic water. He drinks a lot of pure spring water, and he flushes his bowels with two or three enemas. Doctors and drugs are henceforth banished; he gets well! What a blessing to lose one’s faith in the magic of drugs and the majesty of doctors!

Few comprehend the baneful effects of flatulency on the system, the most usual of which are fatigue, depression, headache, buzzing in the ears, deafness, vertigo, loss of memory, inability to fix the attention, disturbance of sight, drowsiness, etc. A continuous stream of carbonic acid or of hydrogen directed against muscular tissue will cause paralysis of the part.

Physicians admit that in certain portions of the alimentary canal extensive dilatation may occur, independent of any permanent obstruction, in the lumen, or bore, of the gut. As a rule, however, victims of proctitis and colitis suffer from more or less occlusion of the lumen in the region invaded by the ulcerative inflammatory process.

Considering that the wall of the abdomen is often greatly extended by gas within the digestive apparatus, it is not amiss to assume that this gas may cause local distention of segments of the gastro-intestinal canal, sufficient to paralyze or render inoperative the parts.

Suppose we make a rubber duplicate of the abdominal walls of the average man, and place therein rubber duplicates of all the internal vital organs—pelvic and abdominal. To hold the stomach, bowels, and other organs in place, we fasten them with elastic bands here and there, and make a generous use of cotton to support the various parts, which are all connected with many little circulating tubes, with strings for the greater nerves, etc. Now let us distend our thin artificial digestive apparatus with air or gas—snugly filling the abdominal space of our model, without tension, however, or slackness of the various parts, which are happily adjusted and at rest. Now, be it remembered, persons suffering from flatulency are more or less in the predicament of the gluttonous animal referred to above: the gas will not escape at either end, however much of an effort it makes, or the victim may make to help it.

In filling very slowly our thin artificial alimentary canal, note the distention along the canal as the gas accumulates. Then note that the elastic bands stretch as the various segments of the canal change location, especially the stomach and portions of the small intestine and of the colon, etc. The stomach, small intestine, and colon, as they dilate, shift about for room. The abdomen is seen to bulge out some four or more inches while the turmoil is heard going on inside.

Continue this inflation and our rubber intestinal tract will display here and there a displacement and permanent abnormal enlargement of the lumen or bore. Suppose, further, that our complete model of the abdominal viscera and wall had tightly around its outer surface unelastic corsets, skirt bands, trouser bands, vests, etc., all or any of which held in or compressed its bulging wall—what would happen? Why, something inside would slip out of place or burst and let all the wind escape, relegating our creation to the rubbish heap.

Now, when a man loses his wind by the rupture of a tube, he is said to have expired, and his body is sent to the crematory—or ought to be sent there for sanitary reasons. It would be much more satisfactory, by the way, to our friends, after our demise, were our bodies sterilized while they “live.”

I hope I have made it clear that it is a most serious pathological condition—inasmuch as it prevents the normal onward progress of ingesta and feces—to permit of the continued existence of an excessively dilated gastro-intestinal canal, with one or more of its segments permanently enlarged—segments like the stomach, duodenum, cæcum, transverse colon, sigmoid flexure, rectum, etc.—and with pendulous abdomen, sallow and muddy complexion, etc.

When to this condition is added a general displacement of the abdominal viscera, or of one or more of the organs of the abdominal and pelvic cavities, you have an objective picture of chronic ill health in all its severity.

Are you sincerely desirous to know how your friends feel when you greet them? Don’t ask them the stereotyped question, “How do you do?” or, if you are a German, “How do you go it?” or, if you are a Frenchman, “How do you carry yourself?” But ask them the specific and sensible question appropriate to our civilized habits: “How are you and your bowels to-day?” And at parting it were well to say: “May peace be with you both—you and your bowels!”

The spirit of man can torment his personality, and his personality in turn can vex his spirit.

Few people are aware of the fact that the stomach and intestines can undergo alteration in position. Many are familiar with the fact that the kidneys may be displaced, and are then called “floating kidneys”; that the liver, pancreas, spleen, and uterus occasionally go on excursions, causing thereby considerable and numerous disturbances. And it is not at all strange that they should, since there is so much pressure from within, so much pressure downward, and so much pressure from without—all through the requirements of fashion, indulgence, and ignorance. But the stomach, upper portion of the duodenum, and small intestine, cæcum, the ascending colon, and especially the transverse colon and sigmoid flexure, are susceptible to various forms of displacement, inhibiting the ready flow or passage of food stuffs, gases, and feces from one segment of the digestive apparatus to another, until the vent is reached.

Reviewing the ground already gone over, we have found that proctitis, as a rule, is the primary cause of sigmoiditis and colitis; that these combined are the cause of con­sti­pa­tion; that this is the cause of indigestion, flatulency, and distended alimentary canal, and, as matters go from bad to worse, of permanent distentions and displacement. Is it any wonder then that there are so many that suffer from gastro-intestinal neurasthenia?

Surely our digestive apparatus ought to have as much attention as a well-regulated house furnace. In the morning the ashes are dumped and fresh coal is put on. A similar process is gone through with at noon and night. Some may run their furnaces on two meals a day and two dumpings of the waste material.

When a boy puts a penny into a slot machine he gets what he expects and is pleased. The machine has done its work in delivering the goods. Why should he give a thought where his penny lodged? In like manner man is always ready to put food stuff, and other stuff as well, into the upper slot of his machine, for he gets immediately satisfaction thereby. But he is like the boy; he doesn’t care a fig what becomes of the stuff so long as it doesn’t annoy him too much. Eventually the machine refuses to work, and seems unable to deliver the goods at the other end; something has become clogged or out of gear. Let me advise the reader at least to keep the passage clear by dumping the systemic furnace twice or thrice daily—using the enema to effect the result.

CHAPTER VII.
Irrigation of the Assimilative and Eliminative Organs.

The habits of people in general do not seem so bad when one considers the average individual’s limitations as to knowledge and thought. The fact is that most people don’t know, don’t think, and hence don’t care. Let them read more science, think more sensibly, and act more seriously; then their habits will be more satisfactory.

The alimentary receptacle—the stomach or vat in which foods and liquids are received and mixed—is habitually converted by many persons into a chemical retort for all sorts of drugs and remedies, with the view of reaching and relieving the ills of the various organs of the body, from dandruff to corns. The writer believes that he can give more and better reasons for his confidence in the therapeutic value of remedies than most other physicians, but he wishes to emphasize here the transcendent importance of common sense in their administration. Before and above all else, however, what is wanted is a clean gastro-intestinal canal; and his claim is that water, properly used, is the best agent to effect that cleansing. On a par with this canal in importance are the eliminative tissues and organs of the system: the kidneys, mucous membrane, and skin. What therapeutic agent, properly used, is better than water? After all the assimilative and eliminative organs and tissues have been thoroughly rinsed with pure, soft water, then, if it be still necessary to administer a chemical agent, one may be selected that will, with these organs and tissues in better condition, work wonders. If you are so foolish as to allow yourself to become foul from head to foot, cleanse yourself with water before resorting to chemical aids.

Somehow or other the mass of even intelligent people, not to speak of the great mass of the ignorant, and I may add even my co-workers in the healing art, are not aware of the supreme want and worth of water for internal and external therapeutic purposes; they do not realize how the stomach, the bowels, and the kidneys cry for it in their neglected and infected condition.

The stomach serves as a convenient receptacle to dump things into after the palate has been entertained and pleased—and about everything is swallowed but pure, soft water. As a rule the stomach takes very kindly to water. It is, moreover, not so piggish as to absorb it all and leave its surface in a foul condition, covered with ropy, slimy products of imperfect digestion. Immediately after deglutition of water, the stomach does just what it ought to do: its muscles contract and dump the contents of the stomach into the duodenum, where the principal act of digestion is accomplished.

As its name implies, the stomach (stow-make) is a receptacle made for the purpose of storing stuffs for nutrition. Here they are mixed and broken up somewhat, and then deposited in the second or real digestive apparatus—the duodenum. This latter organ requires water and organic fluids in liberal quantities for its digestive operations. Both organs need cleansing after they have finished their work, and the digestive and assimilative vessels require water, not only to convey the building material to their harbors, but also to eliminate effectually the worn-out tissues and the residuals of the digestive process.

It has been said that were man to discover heaven (a clean and healthy locality) he would at once convert it into a hell (a vile and filthy one). Man is possessed of an organism of whose constituent elements water forms over eighty per cent. The alvine discharges ought to contain the same percentage of water, if not more. The mucous membrane and skin, to be kept clean, soft, fresh, plump, moist, and free from odors, require their appropriate irrigation. Man may keep himself clean, both inside and out, by irrigating himself before each meal daily. The well-watered and well-washed body and brain constitute a heaven on earth for the indwelling spirit that needs these for its manifestation.