CHAPTER VIII.
Methods of Stomach Cleansing.
Lavage is a term restricted to irrigation of the stomach—a term that has become more or less popular of late with physicians, but is not so popular with those who have to swallow a rubber stomach tube, or with the anxious mother or friends who are usually not permitted to be present on such occasions because of the disturbed and cyanotic appearance of the patient—an appearance produced by the introduction of the catheter. Much can be said, however, of the good results following irrigation of the stomach by the employment of the stomach rubber tube, and in a special class of cases its use is imperative.
But my purpose in this chapter is to advocate the drinking of water as the means par excellence for effective irrigation of the assimilative and eliminative organs, and to make it plain that this form of irrigation is essential for the preservation of health and the relief and cure of chronic inactivity of the principal organs of the system. Usually the drinking of water at regular intervals is sufficient; but in exceptional cases a generous drinking will result in a complete unloading, which can be accomplished with ease and with little loss of time.
Should your stomach be actually performing its office, the suggestions I am about to give will, if followed, keep it sweet, clean, and in good condition, and will also flush all the tissues of the body as well.
The first duty on rising in the morning should be that of flushing the colon, as previously recommended, and flushing the stomach, as now recommended. Take one or two goblets of water (about eight ounces each) at a temperature most agreeable, which, however, should not be ice cold. An hour or half an hour later, during the breakfast, take one goblet of milk and water or two of water alone, when the mouth is free from food. About eleven o’clock in the forenoon, one or two goblets of spring or distilled water, at its natural temperature, should be drunk to cleanse the stomach, duodenum, kidneys, etc., and to flush the tissues of the body. At the noon meal one or two goblets, and at four or five in the afternoon a similar amount, should be drunk—the latter as a cleanser before the evening meal, at which about a pint or more is drunk to aid in emulsifying the food, as at the breakfast and noon repasts. As a rule, besides the amounts drunk at meal-time, there should be consumed as much as two quarts daily, and the best time for this is when the stomach is empty, or when it ought to be empty. At bedtime, one or more glasses may be drunk if one does not suffer from inconvenience from a full bladder during the sleeping hours.
One should make water-drinking a habit, like eating, sleeping, defecating, etc. Water-drinking should be performed at regular periods during the day. System is as essential for the harmonious working of the organs as it is for the relations of the departments in a business, or of the details of any particular department. The guide to the order and temperature to be adopted is agreeableness. Find out by experiment what is most agreeable and beneficial to you, and continue the practice with slight variations adapted to the changes of the seasons and the conditions of the system. There must, however, be some training done in most cases, and what is not agreeable at first may become so.
All persons suffering from proctitis and colitis and their symptoms, as described in the previous chapters of this work and in Intestinal Ills, will require, now and then, if not under treatment, special irrigation of the stomach to remove fermentative matter, particles of undigested food, and tenacious, ropy mucus before the next meal is taken. Otherwise the condition will be made doubly bad, for the fresh material is piled on top of the unduly retained contents of the stomach. As evidence of our civilization, we clean pots and kettles before the next meal. We even clean our fingers before, during, and after the meal. Teeth, mouth, and face get their proper cleansing. Why should we suppose that stomach, duodenum, and kidneys, which receive all sorts of stuff, should remain clean without an occasional flushing? They need rinsing out after brewing the wine of life. The water drunk between meals not only cleanses the organs through which it passes but irrigates the whole system, keeping a normal amount of water in all the tissues, which is as necessary for the maintenance of health as is the due supply of water to the plant in your conservatory.
Observe the large percentage of human beings that are anemic, sallow, clay-colored, or white—a few obese, but the many spare, lean, gaunt—all of them expressing the disgust of the soul in having such an abiding-place. If all the organs and tissues of the body were kept flushed, what a fresh and inviting spot the soul would have for the cultivation here on earth of the arts of life!
Water is the wholesomest of all drinks. It quickens the appetite and strengthens the digestion. It is the most effective agent in the work of elimination—in ridding the system of waste material. Properly taken, it prevents the undue clogging of the organs and tissues, and tends to cure or relieve those that had become clogged, and it does this by washing away the substances for which the system has no further use, and which if they remained would poison it.
It is said that if water be drunk freely during a meal the gastric juice will become diluted or washed away. A similar objection is offered concerning the use of the enema. The horse, it is alleged, should have more sense than to drink from three to six gallons of water and almost immediately thereafter eat a peck or more of oats and a quantity of hay, for it ought to know that there is no room for food with such an amount of water in the stomach. If such objectors could but see the horse smile at such arguments—for it secretly knows that the water does not remain in its stomach, and that its gastric juice is naturally strong and needs dilution—they would stand aghast. Would we not be better off if we were not influenced by fool talk like the above advice to the horse, especially as regards our internal economy?