In the use of water at a temperature of 120 to 135 degrees, or even more, we have one of the most valuable adjuvants in all stages of proctitis and colitis, and, if a properly regulated plan be pursued in connection with the requisite local treatment, more good can thus be accomplished than by all other means combined.
The layman is more or less familiar with the condition of a sore or ulcer in which soft, spongy, or fungous tissues appear, called “proud flesh,” which, on an inflamed mucous membrane, is called granular tissue. Were it not for the usual presence of granular tissue on a chronically inflamed mucous membrane and for ulcerated sections or patches, channels, and stretched or pouched mucous membrane called piles, the proper use of hot water alone would in time effect a total cure in almost every case of proctitis.
Many well-meaning persons conceive the idea that, if hot water is so beneficial, they may use it as hot as possible for the purpose of an enema likewise, since they will thereby not only relieve the bowels of their stored feces but simultaneously do the inflamed tissues “a whole lot of good.” Their spirit is admirable, for not all patients are prompted to such thoughtful attempts to do everything in their power to get well—even though they err with the best intentions at heart. Let them remember, however, that the first effect of hot water is to increase the blood supply in the tissues if it be applied for a short time only. In the majority of cases, the enema does not require more than from five to ten minutes; hence, only harm can result if really hot water be used. Now and then a person will become possessed with the notion that a hot enema should be followed by a cold one, to bring “tone” to the lower bowels. But in all these misdirected efforts matters are made doubly worse.
Cold water will allay fever and inflammation, but when its use is once begun it should be continued without intermission until a cure is effected. For this reason it is not suitable where chronic inflammation exists—especially on the mucous membrane of the bowels. It is, however, excellent for acute inflammation of the external parts of the body, such as the hands, arms, legs, etc., where it can be continued without interruption for one, two, or three days if necessary.
In beginning the treatment for constipation, there are a few cases in which the patient has to fuss for an hour or more with the enema before he can obtain any sort of a proper fecal evacuation; or there may be inability to expel the water from the bowels when once injected. This stoppage is most likely to occur at the recto-sigmoid juncture (O’Beirne’s sphincter). A strictured condition of the bowels causes retention of feces and gases and why not water as well? In such cases time would be saved, perhaps, by combining the procedure for an enema with that of a recurrent douche, which involves a continuous application of water at a temperature of from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty-five degrees for an hour or more. Figure [21] illustrates a successful device for applying medicated water at a high temperature to the anus, rectum, and colon. This apparatus can be used while sitting on a water-closet seat and the treatment can be completed without changing position or removing the instrument.
The instrument is attached to the reservoir (Figure [18]) by a soft-rubber tube. In the cone-shaped piece of hard rubber (Figure 27) is a hard-rubber stop-cock or valve (Figure 29), and by turning the handle sidewise the valve is opened to let the water escape from the bowels into the toilet basin. When sufficient water, at from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty-five degrees temperature, has entered the bowels, allow it to remain for ten minutes, then permit it to escape by opening the valve; then close it and allow more hot water to flow in and remain for five or ten minutes and again allow it to escape through the rectal point, repeating the inflow and outflow every five or ten minutes for an hour or more without removing the anal point from the rectum during the whole time of treatment. After a few trials it will be found that the hot-water treatment can be accomplished without withdrawing the point.
Rectal Points for recurrent douche are of two sizes (Nos. 25 and 26). The larger one (No. 25) requires a plug to be introduced through the cone-shaped external anal support and rectal point, to make its introduction into the rectum easy, after which the plug is withdrawn and the hot-water treatment begun. The bore of the rectal points cannot become clogged by the presence of feces, mucus or membranous shreds or casts, which are usually brought away by the hot-water treatment. At no time during the treatment can the point become stopped up, the size being sufficient to insure a proper inflow and outflow. And the instrument can be easily cleaned.
Near the attachment of the soft-rubber tube is a glass reservoir (Figure 24), for the use of oils with the enema or the hot-water treatment; it is detachable. A valve regulates the outflow of oil from the pressure of water in the reservoir, as it passes into the bowels. We are enabled thus to treat by double medication as it were, a chronic disease of the intestines and its symptoms—that is, intestines that have been long neglected or maltreated through lack of proper diagnosis, or by all sorts of chemical compounds from above, through mouth and stomach.
The author and inventor naturally enjoys not a little satisfaction in being able to present to sufferers as nearly perfect an instrument as can be devised; one that, in conjunction with other aids, meets all requirements involved in the proper treatment of proctitis and colitis. Lavage or irrigation of the large intestine with water at a temperature at from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty or one hundred and fifty degrees, not only accomplishes rapid and wonderful cleaning and curative results, but overcomes, when properly applied, contracted, congested, engorged, and inflamed tissues of the bowels. Therapeutically, it has a marked effect on the whole system, being beneficial beyond words to describe; it relaxes nervous and muscular tension of the body, producing restfulness and sleep; it stimulates and equalizes the circulation, promotes perspiration, absorption, and active elimination of all deleterious substances from all the organs of the body. Medicinally, it is really a combined internal Russian and Turkish bath, removing abdominal corpulency and gaseous obesity, resulting from chronic auto-intoxication. The external Russian and Turkish baths afford a satisfaction skin deep to the bather, but the combined internal Russian and Turkish bath is most agreeably relaxing and restful to mind and body, bringing peace, since all the organs of the system are performing their functions. Some of my patients resort to internal hot-water lavage for all aches and ills that mar their happiness. After an external bath the bather may desire an application of oil, alcohol, or cocoanut butter rubbed on the skin, and in the same way the bather’s internal mucous membrane is not neglected; for, with the author’s appliance, medicated and perfumed oils, extracts, and powders for remedial purposes are carried to every part of the intestines that the water reaches, thus exerting a cleansing, healing, and soothing effect where most needed.
A few sufferers will object to the time required for an enema twice a day, although they find time to eat three, or even four times a day, without any objection whatever; there is plenty of time for filling up the digestive apparatus, but no time for its normal elimination. And these miserable, go-lucky, haphazard people are always sick and unfortunate. The internal Russian and Turkish bath is demanded only by those who truly desire to be free from their bowel troubles, and from the numerous symptoms resulting from mucus absorption, constipation, and auto-intoxication.