THE ORIGIN AND USE OF THE ENEMA.
Pliny recorded the fact that "the use of clysters or enemata was first taught by the stork, which may be observed to inject water into its bowels by means of its long beak." The British Medical Journal, reviewing the newly published Storia della Farmacia, says that Frederigo Kernot describes in it the invention of the enema apparatus, which he looks upon as an epoch in pharmacy as important as the discovery of America in the history of human civilization. The glory of the invention of this instrument, so beneficial to suffering mankind, belongs to an Italian, Gatenaria, whose name ought to find a modest place together with Columbus, Galileo, Gioja and other eminent and illustrious Italians. He was a compatriot of Columbus and professor at Pavia, where he died in 1496, after having spent several years in perfecting his instrument. The enema apparatus may be justly named the queen of the world, as it has reigned without a rival for three hundred years over the whole continent, besides Brazil and America. The enema came into use soon after the invention of the apparatus itself. Bouvard, physician to Louis XIII, applied two hundred and twenty enemata to this monarch in the course of six months. In the first years of Louis XIV it became the fashion of the day. Ladies took three or four a day to keep a fresh complexion, and the dandies used as many for a white skin. Enemata were perfumed with orange, angelica, bergamot and roses, and Mr. Kernot exclaims enthusiastically, "O se tornasse questa moda!" (Oh, that this fashion would return!). The medical profession at first hailed the invention with delight, but soon found the application infra dig., and handed it over to the pharmacist; but shameful invectives, sarcasms and epigrams, hurled at those who exercised the humble duty of applying the apparatus, made them at last resign it to barbers and hospital attendants. (Year Book of Therapeutics, Wood, 1872.)
"The history of the warm bath," says Dr. Paris, "presents another curious instance of the vicissitudes to which the reputation of our valuable resources is so universally exposed. That which for so many ages was esteemed the greatest luxury in health, and the most efficacious remedy in disease, fell into total disrepute in the reign of Augustus, for no other reason than because Antonius Musa had cured the Emperor of a dangerous malady by the use of the cold bath. The most frigid water that could be procured was in consequence recommended on every occasion.... This practice, however, was doomed but to an ephemeral popularity, for, although it restored the Emperor to health, it shortly afterward killed his nephew and son-in-law Marcellus, an event which at once deprived the remedy of its credit and the physician of his popularity.
"That the warm and not the cold bath was esteemed by the ancient Greeks for its invigorating properties may be inferred from a dialogue of Aristophanes, in which one of the characters says, 'I think none of the sons of the gods ever exceeded Hercules in bodily and mental force.' Upon which the other asks, 'Where didst thou ever see a cold bath dedicated to Hercules?'
"Thus there exists a fashion in medicine, as in the other affairs of life, regulated by the caprice and supported by the authority of a few leading practitioners, which has been frequently the occasion of dismissing from practice valuable medicines and of substituting others less certain in their effects and more questionable in their nature. As years and fashion revolve, so have these neglected remedies, each in its turn, risen again into favor and notice, whilst old receipts, like old almanacs, are abandoned until the period may arrive that will once more adjust them to the spirit and fashion of the times." (J. A. Paris, Pharmacologia, p. 31, New York, 1825.)
"A story told of Voltaire," says Dr. Arthur Leared, "well illustrates both the evil effects of constipation and the advantage of using the enema. The great philosopher was one day so miserable and dejected that he told a friend he had resolved to hang himself. His friend called the next morning to ascertain whether the resolve had been or was intended to be carried out. But Voltaire only replied, with a smile, 'I have been well washed out this morning.'" (Op. cit., p. 200.)
For those suffering from chronic intestinal uncleanliness or constipation, an occasional intestinal wash-out, or bath, is quite as satisfactory as an "occasional" external bath or the "occasional" use of a cathartic medicine. If there is a necessity for cleansing and purifying the bowels at all, why not do it properly and systematically until the condition that made the artificial cleansing necessary is removed? Who would tolerate the cleaning of dining-room, kitchen, dairy and other utensils in domestic use only when they became so foul that they could not be endured any longer without great annoyance? Away with the "occasional" cleansing habit for either external or internal bodily cleanliness! There are persistent causes for internal uncleanliness, for the tardy action of the bowels, which require regular periods for cleansing until cure is effected.
It is estimated that food taken into the stomach will reach the colon in five hours. For nineteen hours the sewage waste of the body is gradually becoming a fetid pool before an outlet is furnished it by the one-movement-a-day people; and O ye gods of health! how many of us there are that haven't even one movement a day! For a few hours the absorbent cells of the colon will try to extract as much of the nutritious residue as the system calls for, but along with it a lot of poisonous filth will be absorbed. The call of the system for nourishment should be fully answered by the small intestines. Savages have four or five movements a day, and we certainly should not have less than three. People of refined sentiments will, at such a disclosure, bestir themselves to better things.
Water, when properly applied, is the only remedy that meets the physiological and pathological requirements of the chronically constipated. By its use the diseased, spasmodically contracted muscular tube is simply dilated, and the imprisoned feces and gases above are permitted to pass down and through the temporarily occluded section of the diseased bowels, the patient will have the consciousness of neatly accomplishing an imperative requirement, and the satisfaction which cleanliness entails.