Naturally the mind of man was first educated to observe external
objects and forces in their effects upon himself, and the external
still continues to engross his attention as if he were a child in a
kindergarten. Fascinated by the Without, he ignores the Within. But,
marvel of marvels, Disease (which when looked at with discerning eyes
is seen to be an angel in disguise) comes to enlighten him concerning
the world within. Disease gradually acquaints him with the fact that
there are within him organs and functions corresponding to the objects
and forces in the world without,--servitors in fact which must not be
ignored under penalty of transforming them into foes to his well-being.
Disease makes him aware that by ignoring the claims of his inner
relations he has been converting his very food, juices and gases into
insidious and formidable poisons, which perforce he absorbs into his
blood and tissues and circulates throughout his entire system. Thus
does the disguised angel admonish the ignorant that the rights of the
inner world must not be ignored--that one's duties thereto cannot be
neglected without disastrous consequences.
Thus does Pathology, which is really Physiology reversed, become the
self-revealer _par excellence_. Through digestion and assimilation the
physiological process takes up the food, juices and gases, to support
and augment the life of man. The pathological process, on the contrary,
because the conditions for nutrition are ignored, reverses the
upbuilding processes; and the organs of life wither, waste and weaken,
until life goes out like fire unfed.
Man has been slowly learning to take sanitary measures in reference to
everything that contributes to comfort in his surroundings, and
hygienic measures in reference to everything conducive to stability in
his health.
Through ages he has learned, by experience and experiment, of the
changes that inevitably occur in such perishable nutritive substances
as water, milk, meats, vegetables, fruits, etc., if they be left
uncared for; and he has been led thus to the inference of the law of
decomposition--or putrefactive and fermentative changes. Idle
substances, like idle minds, have decomposition and the devil for
companions. Substances confined in containers open to the air--ponds,
cesspools, etc.--are every-day object lessons to man of the fact that
the chemical changes they undergo furnish the conditions for breeding
bacterial poisons, and that these poisons are a dread menace to animal
life.
If the reader will observe the analogy between the decomposition of
substances in vessels or pools, and the decomposition of food in the
reservoir called the stomach; and its further decomposition in a long
canal (the small intestine), connecting the stomach with other
receptacles called the colon and sigmoid flexure; and then the
decomposition of _their_ contents; he will readily comprehend the
chemical putrefactive or fermentative changes or bacterial action that
take place in the organism, if for any reason the contents be confined.
Of the four chief elements that enter into the composition of living
bodies three are gaseous, or convertible into gas. In the physical man
water constitutes three-fourths of the weight of the body. This being
so we realize why, notwithstanding our sense of solidity and weight,
chemical changes occur quite as readily in our organism as in the
substances we see about us. There are no waterproof walls in the body
of man to impede the percolation of liquids freighted with promiscuous
Passengers from the alimentary canal; Passengers designed to nourish
the organs for which they have an affinity. But there are those that
have no organic affinity, and these are tramps, vagabonds, and even
murderers, disturbing and destroying the normal functions of the
system. Through extravasation, that is, through fluid infiltration of
tissues, these Passengers come to be one with us, and we make them part of our tissue; but some of the Passengers are the demolishers of the
living temple.
Water is universally present in all the tissues of the body, and it is
indispensable for introducing new substances into the system and for
eliminating the worn-out tissues and foreign substances. It is indeed
important to emphasize the fact that properly to eliminate the foreign
and waste products from the system requires, in a healthy person, at
least five pints of water during twenty-four hours.
The amount of gastric juice secreted in twenty-four hours is from six
to fourteen pints; of pancreatic juice, one pint; of bile there are two
to three pints, and of saliva one to three pints. It is estimated that
the juices secreted during digestion in a man weighing 140 pounds
amount to twenty-three pounds in twenty-four hours. These fluids are
poured back and forth in the process of transforming food into flesh
and eliminating waste material.
In the alimentary canal there are vessels for holding fluid, semi-fluid
and moist masses of substance, in all of which decomposition occurs if
the substances be retained beyond the normal length of time. These
vessels or reservoirs are the stomach, duodenum, small intestines,
colon, sigmoid flexure, and too often the rectum. Through the
harmonious action of this intestinal retinue of servitors man is well
equipped and qualified for health, and he in whom this harmonious
subservience prevails is among the blessed and elect of mankind. But
alas! the great majority of human beings are sufferers from the
inharmonious and insubordinate action of these servitors. How many a
human being suffers from _chronic constipation and indigestion_, the
exciting causes of which are insidious, and the consequences a protean
enemy to his happiness! Medical writers on the subject of chronic
constipation have assigned numerous causes, and likewise prescribed
multitudinous remedies to the patient; but as a general rule this
patient, after suffering various woes, if still surviving the many
years of medication, rebels against taking further remedies and resigns
himself to the chronic enemy on the best terms he can make with diet.
For this large class of chronic sufferers we have good news; and for
the class that have suffered five or ten years we have better news; and
for the class of infants and children that have started on the road of
ill-health we have real glad tidings. To know that there is only one
chief cause for chronic constipation and its train of disorders, and
that that cause overshadows all other causes combined, and is easily
diagnosed and treated, is news long hoped and prayed for by a multitude
of sufferers the world over.
Twenty years as a specialist in diseases of the lower bowels have
demonstrated to the writer that chronic inflammation, and often
ulceration, of the rectum and sigmoid flexure, in ninety-nine cases out
of a hundred, is the cause of chronic constipation and the long army of
ills resulting from it. And yet, as the reader is well aware,
constipation has had many "causes," since the days of Hippocrates,
especially the abnormal condition of the liver.
The etiology, that is, the exciting cause, of the inflammation of the
anus, rectum, colon, etc., may date from the time a diaper was placed
on the new-born infant. Excoriations of the integument about the anus
by the excretions of bowels and bladder indicate that the mucous
membrane of anus and rectum demands local remedies, as well as the
integument of the buttocks, and that it is not the liver which is at
fault. The many applications of the diaper during the period of its
use, and the frequently delayed removal at night or during long rides
in baby wagons, railway trains or carriages, and during long social
visits of the nurse; constipating foods, lack of drinking water,
constipating medicines, followed by all sorts of purgatives, etc., are
among a few of the direct causes of diseases of the rectum. A child at
the age of eighteen months with a healthy rectum is most rare.
The ten thousand and one chances for contracting disease of the anus
and rectum do not cease with the period of infancy. The child is left
pretty much to shift for itself as to regularity of eating and the
evacuation of the contents of its bowels, wherein disease has already
obtained a foothold. All kinds of foodstuffs, at all hours, with seeds,
stones, etc., are poked into its stomach, followed by constipating
remedies to quiet inevitable troubles, or brisk purgatives given with
the hope of expelling the arrested contents of the bowels. Is it any
wonder that ninety-eight persons of adult age out of every hundred
suffer more or less from chronic inflammation and ulceration of anus,
rectum, sigmoid flexure, colon, or appendix?
Traumatic (externally produced) injuries to the mucous membrane of the
rectum frequently cause inflammation, and hard pieces of bone, wood,
seeds, imbedded in the feces, scratch, cut and bruise the tissues
before and during the act of defecation. Cold boards, stones, earth and
other substances used as seats may produce inflammation of the rectum.
There are many and various causes which may be the means of exciting
inflammation of the anus and rectum later in life; but it is the
writer's opinion that the cause can be traced back to infancy or early
childhood, and that accidents or imprudence in after years merely
excite an already-existing chronic inflammation. Piles, fissure,
itching pockets, tabs, prolapse, abscesses, fistulæ, etc., are only the
outcome and symptoms of a chronic disease which has incubated for
fifteen, twenty or more years. None of this list of troubles produces
constipation. It is the inflammation located at the middle portion of
the rectum and extending into the sigmoid flexure that causes
constipation; that protean monster which deranges more lives with
nervousness than any other pathological condition to which the flesh of
man is heir!
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