If the medical butcher has operated on them, you will find an anal canal open to such an extent that two fingers can be inserted without distending the tissues in the least. And when the victim of ballooning of the rectum and ignorant operation makes further complaint to the surgeon of the aches and pains, he is consoled by being informed that the end of the spine will have to be removed. Irreparable damage done and no aid at all received! It is a pity such ignorance on the subject should exist in the medical profession in this city.
The abnormal cavity, so difficult to empty properly owing to its depth and diseased outlet, is seldom free from gases, feces and liquids. Daily evacuations will not empty this cavity, nor will cathartics or diarrhea. A permanent cesspool of poisons is this, where all forms of poisonous germs are propagated, and infect the system by absorption. No use to take medicines for your poor blood, bad complexion and horrid feelings, as they will not cleanse the augean stable so long neglected. No use to journey to other localities for health so long as you carry so formidable a foe to health with you.
The mucous membrane in the chronic state of the disease presents a rather dry, indolent and bluish appearance, except that here and there the tissues show more activity of the disease, more especially so over the anal region, due to harsher disturbance during the act of stooling. In the subacute or acute stage of the inflammatory process there is more general redness and puffiness of the mucous membrane, or a swollen condition with increased discharge of mucus and perhaps some blood.
There is a heavy, uncomfortable feeling, with more or less soreness and pain, especially after evacuation of the feces. If a fissure or anal ulcer is present the pain is in proportion to its size and the general aggravation of all the diseased parts. Itching or pruritus about the anus may accompany the trouble to a very annoying extent, being an evidence that the anal pockets are becoming much diseased. The partially constricted and irritable sphincter muscles become excited during the act of stooling and react on the anal grip or contraction, making it more intense. This latter condition may shut off the flow of blood in a local vein; and the blood becoming coagulated forms a painful bluish grape-like tumor at the external opening of the anus.
Abscesses may form at some portion of the diseased gut and result in an external fistula.
Piles may co-exist in some cases of ballooning, but are usually not annoying.
It is the local anal or external annoyances that compel the sufferer to seek medical advice and aid, and he learns that the troubles complained of are only symptoms of a chronic disease, therefore easily removed without harsh treatment while the cause is being properly cured.
It is very fortunate for the sufferer from ballooning of the rectum to have in or near the anal canal those painful hints or symptoms of a very grave and long existing disease whose constitutional symptoms were well marked but attributed to other causes, especially to disease of the liver—an organ of so much solicitude that the poor liver-worshipping patient ought to receive more gracious response from it.
In every case of chronic proctitis, or inflammation of the anus and rectum, the sigmoid flexure must be more or less dilated, as the upper part of the rectum is very irritable and contracted and inhibits the feces from passing beyond the sigmoid; but this irritability and contraction of the rectum, as a rule, is not nearly so severe as that of the anal canal, whose orifice is closed by very strong sphincter muscles.
Such being the pathological change in the sigmoid flexure and especially in the lower portion of the rectum, as described in these two chapters, who, with ordinary intelligence and an idea of cleanliness, would take or prescribe remedies to move the bowels, if it were possible to cleanse the foul capacious cavities with water? We know that they can be thus cleansed, and that it can be easily accomplished with benefit to the diseased canals.