Now, the parallel between external and internal cleanliness is quite obvious. Those whose bowels move but once in two or three days do not realize how foul they are. Others have a scant evacuation once in twenty-four hours, and they imagine that they are as clean as those that take an external bath once a week think themselves to be. Still others have two stools daily, and they feel as clean internally as those that take three external baths weekly. And, finally, there are a few who, defecating thrice daily, feel quite as clean as does the most persistent external bather. Thus we see that cleanliness, external and internal, is a habit, a new nature, attended with exquisite comfort and pleasure—a quality that may lead to the goal of divine purity in realizing the joys of hydropathy.
The wild woodland flower grew and blossomed without attention, attracting but little interest. After, however, the florist has cultivated it to the high stage of development in which we find it to-day, with its stalk, stem, leaf, and fragrant petals displaying their marvelous symmetry and beauty, we begin to appreciate the value of labor, pains, cultivation. In like manner, it is our imperative duty to give proper care to every requisite detail in the transformation of our body into a human flower of health, grace, joy, and harmony.
The great majority of those that do me the honor to read what I have to say on internal and external cleanliness will, doubtless, not agree with me as to the frequency of the ablutions in twenty-four hours. Yet I have a suspicion that if my objectors were to try an external and an internal bath, on both rising and retiring, they would soon consider the practice too delightful to be foregone; they would soon develop more sweetness of character and be more particular as to the purity of their nether garments, and, finally, would seem ensphered by an atmosphere peopled with angels.
My proposition is this: First make a man clean, internally and externally, and thus you may make him good; after you have made him good you can make him healthy in both body and mind; after you have made him healthy you can make him full of joy.
To recapitulate: A good time to take your internal bath is about half an hour after each meal. Cultivate regularity in this, and Nature will second your efforts and establish a periodicity for you by her suggestive impulse and call. Our internal economy should not be slighted as it has been. The intestines are good, faithful, patient servitors, ready to perform their lowly office even when we are inattentive and heedless. Sometimes, however, they become rebellious, after they have stood more abuse than one would think them capable of standing. Let us reform our bad habits; our servitors are willing to enter with us into better habits, and co-operate with us in a truly human life. Can you not spare a few minutes, three times a day, at regular periods, for inner purification? You will find it very easy when once you make it a matter of routine.
Now note this point: The work of your brain depends on the power sent to it by the gastro-intestinal canal. A motor car goes no faster than the power furnished enables it to go. So your brain activity is ever on a par with the energy supplied from this usually despised intestinal source; that is, it can never rise higher than the supply of this energy warrants, and it always falls to the level of this supply, for it depends on it absolutely for sustaining power. It would seem, therefore, that common sense would be sufficient to shame us into keeping clean, scrupulously clean, the canal that supplies us with working force—the canal that extends without a break from mouth to anus. Yet my experience shows that almost everybody cares more for his outsides than for his insides—more for squandering his stored energy than for looking out for its constant renewal—and that most patients are foul all the way down.
Well-fed animals that have the range of Nature are plump, and have healthy hair, skin, teeth, etc., because their intestinal organs perform their functions frequently and fully. When animals become domesticated and “civilized,” they become constipated and catch various human illnesses or grow a crop of their own. Well-fed “humanals” grow thin and puny, or bloated with gas, looking like corpulent clay men, without natural teeth, without natural hair, their skin dry and of a sickly hue, bloodless, fading away because of an early blight before they have completed their early growth. Heredity is blamed for the bloodless, nerveless, brainless body, when, as a matter of fact, its degeneration is due to foulness within.
Birds, beasts, and savages (more fortunate than civilized man) have the wide earth on which to stool when Nature calls. Their handy water-closet enables them to enjoy good health. As civilization advances, and business and social customs become more complex, water-closets get fewer and less accessible. As a consequence, man has to use his large intestine for a storehouse. He has done this so long that it seems impossible to break him of the foul habit. But he is paying the penalty. Many have abused the bladder in the same way, and had this been a large organ like its brother, the colon, we would long ago have heard the stereotyped excuse in regard to this function, “Oh, any time to urinate that I can find will do.” Those who object to the new order of bowel relief should, on the same principle, object to frequent bladder relief.
I submit this proposition to the judgment of unprejudiced minds: Is it not reasonable that so harmless and efficient a remedy as the internal bath should be adopted by all intelligent persons? Inasmuch as neglect—due to social, business, and other customs, and to lack of conveniences for ready relief—has brought upon us so much fecal poisoning and local disorders and so many abnormal and pernicious systemic results, it should not be considered too great a task to take an internal bath three times a day to amend our outrage on Nature—an outrage that involves our health and general well-being, here and hereafter. We owe it, not only to our possibilities, but also to posterity, that fecal poisoning be banished. We have no right to communicate such a taint to our children. They have a right to be free from such poison. Do we ever think of their claims in this regard? Let us leave them a better legacy, by adopting the thrice-a-day use of the enema for the purification of the alimentary canal!