THE INTER-DEPENDENCE OF ANUS, RECTUM, SIGMOID FLEXURE, AND COLON.
Physiologically, or in a normal state, the rectum is not a receptacle
for liquids and feces but a conduit during the act of defecation.
Should, therefore, the feces have passed into the rectum and the desire
to stool be not responded to--though the desire continue urgent--the
feces will be returned to the sigmoid cavity by physiological action.
When, however, the functions of the anus and rectum are disturbed by
chronic inflammation, etc., the lower portion of the rectum becomes a
more or less roomy pouch, a receptacle for feces and liquids; and
instead of being physiologically empty it becomes pathologically
distended, the result of spasmodic action or of more or less permanent
stricture of the sphincter ani. See illustration in my book entitled
_How to Become Strong_ (page 14).
The putrid fecal mass of solid and liquid contents accumulated in the
artificial reservoir at the end of the intestinal sewer, is one of the
most common and serious pathogenic (disease-producing) and pyogenic
(pus-producing) sources, which, by auto-infection, afflict man from
infancy to old age. Here--in the dilated and obstructed sewer--the
ptomain and leucomain class of poisons, and many of the poisonous
germs, led by the king of morbid disturbers, the bacillus coli
communis, find another and last chance to be taken up by the absorbing
cells of the mucous membrane and returned to the blood; with which they
are carried to all parts of the body, clogging the glands, choking up
the pores and obstructing the circulation, thereby causing congestion
and inflammation of the various organs. The action of cathartics,
laxatives, etc., fills the ano-rectal cavity with a watery solution of
foul substances; this solution is readily absorbed into the
circulation, aggravating the auto-intoxication (the established
self-poisoned condition) already existing. Danger does not end with the
absorption of bacterial poisons, as we have to reckon with the
deleterious effects of the various intestinal gases, resulting, with
rapid augmentation of volume, from the putrefactive changes in the
imprisoned feculent matter.
A sphincter ani permanently constricted or irritable owing to disease
results in an _abnormal_ receptacle just above the anal orifice (as
shown in the illustration referred to); and a constricted and irritable
rectum results in the impaction and dilatation of the sigmoid cavity,
which is normally a receptacle, closed at its lower end by circular
fibres separating it (the cavity) from the rectum and performing the
function of a sphincter muscle. The rectal muscular fibres perform the
office of a sphincter for the sigmoid cavity. The pathological changes
that result in rectal impaction of feces usually extend to the sigmoid
cavity. This cavity is 17-1/2 inches in length, shaped in a double
curve like an italic _S_. Civilized man should consider the disturbance
to the functional action of body and brain, and the danger to health
and longevity involved in the storage of effete and fetid matter. The
disturbance and danger are enhanced when the tissues of the sigmoid
flexure and the rectum are invaded by inflammation. A healthy action of
the sigmoid receptacle depends on the rectum (a conduit six to eight
inches in length); and as it is the universal verdict that disease of
the rectum is one of the most common maladies that afflict the human
race, it must inevitably follow that the feces will be abnormally
stored in the sigmoid cavity, occasioning thereby habitual constipation
which in turn brings on a host of functional disturbances throughout
the system.
The colon is a receptacle and a conduit some three feet in length (see
ib. p. 13) and its action depends upon the ability of the sigmoid
flexure to perform its function as a final normal receptacle; and this
in turn upon the rectum, which depends on the sphincter ani. The colon
does not appear to possess any digestive powers, though it is capable
of absorbing substances. Its function is not only to receive and
forward the trifling residue of food which escapes digestion and
absorption, but chiefly to excrete, through its own minute glands, the
waste of the system coming from the blood.
The excretion from these glands of the colon into the colon, plus the
effete portion of the food received by the colon from the small
intestine, approximate in weight from four to six ounces in an adult
person in twenty-four hours; and of this amount passed 75 per cent is
water; so that were the excreta dried the solid matter thus evacuated
would not be found to weigh more than one ounce, or one and a half
ounces.