Albeit that the cleaning of the digestive apparatus in the case of a sick person is regarded as a necessary first help the world over, few persons realize that it is of equal importance in the case of a seemingly healthy person. Is it not a fair inference, therefore, that where a purgative—such as calomel, or one of the innumerable similarly-acting medicines—temporarily relieves a patient’s symptoms, the timely precaution of keeping the intestinal canal and system clean would prevent a person from getting ill?
The reader may think that, in these observations, I have wandered away from my text, but, as uric acid is the symptom of a combination and complication of disorders of which constipation is the secondary cause, the connection and sequence of my remarks are evident. It is safe for a layman to assume that, where so many diverse schemes are employed to relieve symptoms, the diagnosis is wrong—also the treatment.
A few of the many primary symptoms of proctitis and colitis are constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, biliousness, flatulency, putrefaction, and gaseous and bacterial poisons—a foul gastro-intestinal canal, through which there are daily absorbed from the bowels two-thirds to three-fourths of the excrementitious matter into the system. With these facts before us we need not be astonished at the statement that nine-tenths of human ills have their origin in the digestive apparatus.
Among the secondary symptoms of proctitis and colitis is poisoned blood—anemia, which is usually followed by impaired nutrition and emaciation or obesity. Along with the changes in the blood and nutrition there occurs lodgment or deposit of salts, acids, etc., in the various organs and tissues of the body. Almost every one is familiar with gouty deposits in the finger joints and other joints of the body. If the deposits occur in the muscular tissue it is called rheumatism. If in the urinary organs we have gravel, Bright’s disease, diabetes, cystitis, irritation of the neck of the bladder, frequent calls to urinate; and the urine, scanty and high-colored, on cooling reveals a crystalline deposit. The principal mineral substances of the urine are as follows—of which one or more may become poisonous: chloride of potassium, chloride of calcium, chloride of magnesium, chloride of sodium, sulphate of potassium, sulphate of soda, sulphate of magnesia, phosphate of soda, and phosphate of potassium.
The liver gets its share of the foul substances generated in the intestinal canal, which cause congestion of the organ. Toxic biliary salts and acids are present. The deposit may form gall-stones, and jaundice and many other annoying symptoms may occur. The system is simply a filter, or blotter, that lets the poisonous contents of the intestinal canal pass through and out; but all the organs and tissues, during the process, retain many of the foreign toxic substances, which overtax (and frequently destroy) their functions with work that Nature never intended they should do. Think of it—all the organs and tissues around the intestinal canal serving as fecal vents! Deposits cause irritation of nerve centers and nerve cells precisely as in fibrous and cartilaginous tissues; and we speak of the symptoms as spinal irritation, hysteria, chorea, lumbago, sciatica, nervous tension, headache, irritability, despondency, melancholia, insomnia, dementia, etc. From the disturbance of the voluntary and involuntary nerves we have irregular circulation of the blood from disturbed heart action, cold hands and feet, and flushing of the face alternating with pallor, vertigo, and dizziness. The capillary circulation becomes obstructed with crystallized bodies, as chunks of ice obstruct a stream of water.
Catarrhal inflammation of the mucous membrane is set up in various parts of the body by the deposits in the membrane and the abnormal means of their elimination through it. The skin of the body, which is the mucous membrane turned outward, suffers likewise from diseases having numerous names.
Doctors have always expressed a poor opinion of the liver because it did not keep the bowels sweet and clean, and they mistakenly though honestly called it “the lazy liver,” “the torpid liver,” “hepatic insufficiency,” “atony of the liver,” “sluggish liver,” “hepatic torpor,” “fatty liver,” etc.; and the poor victim of proctitis and colitis was glad he had consulted the doctor and learned “just the cause” of his internal troubles—and could suffer on more reconciled to his malady since he knew its exact name and could continue to take with regularity one or more of the many powerful liver exciters, to stimulate activity in the liver and bowels once every day or two, if possible. By some strange psychological or other influence of late years, however, physicians have turned their attention to the “lazy kidneys,” and now it is difficult to decide which they are purging the most—the liver or the kidneys. At any rate, they both must be violently excited at the same time, and we hear “lithia” mentioned, or “laxative salts of lithia,” every time uric acid is thought of. Stimulate the lazy liver and kidneys, and with abundant salts dissolve out of the tissues and blood the precipitated deposits; this is the fashion of the times.
Diagnosis wrong and treatment harmful! Water is by far the best agent to dissolve salt compounds, to dilute acids, or to remove filth. It is also the best means of soothing and relieving the long irritated and inflamed tissues and organs, that have had from two-thirds to three-fourths of the daily fecal mass thrust upon them and collected in them, when they are called torpid, lazy, and whipped up unmercifully by bile and urine bouncers. We ourselves would be very torpid, sluggish, or “lazy” if called upon to do the work of two persons under such embarrassing physiological circumstances as being filled with toxic substances, or thoroughly auto-intoxicated.
When will common sense take the place of theories founded on guesswork, and some thorough washing out by plain or distilled water be done, internally as well as externally? After such an operation some specific remedy may be taken, if demanded, with the certainty of permanent good resulting. But remember, your aqueous body, held in its form by the skin and mucous membrane, needs a well-nigh constant stream of pure water flowing through it to keep it fresh and clean.