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.