KING LIVER AND BILE-BOUNCERS.
The "house not made with hands"--the human body--has, like the house
made with hands, _its_ sewer system, which is over twenty-five feet in
length. To cleanse (?) this wonderfully delicate, tortuous and extended
passage-way of waste material, civilized man knows no better than to
put in at the top of the house, purgatives, cathartics, bile-bouncers,
etc., with one hope and purpose in view, namely, that these policemen
go searching, scouring and hustling the intestines in the greatest
possible haste, in order to remove an obstruction about three hundred
inches distant from where these "forcers" had entered the intestinal
sewer. With mercury as a scavenger the work is pretty thoroughly done,
though extra care has to be taken that some of the teeth may remain
after the victim survives the additional intestinal inflammation
occasioned by its drastic measures.
Traits acquired by the father are inherited by the children;
present-day doctors follow early practitioners; they still pour in many
and various decoctions at the top of the obstructed sewer of the human
house to dislodge accumulated gases and feces at the bottom. The
plumber treats the sewer of the house of brick and stone more wisely.
Our fathers partook of laxatives, cathartics, purgatives, and in
consequence we start in life with teeth, intestines, appendices, out of
gear and nervous systems on edge. With unconscious stupidity we
continue the fatuous practice. The monarch selected to preside over the
functions of human life was the Liver; and it is only with bated breath
that any doctor dares question the legitimacy of that monarch's claim.
The loyal subjects of King Liver are ever ready to call out "quack,"
"charlatan," etc., to those who dare repudiate the sovereignty of the
Liver.
So much attention and flirtation does the liver receive from the
_liver-persuaders_ that the pancreas ought to be very jealous. The
pancreas excretes quite as much fluid into the duodenum as its larger
neighbor, and is, therefore, no mean organ. And we need not wonder
should we find the intestinal glands piqued at our over-attention to
the liver, as they, in their work at the metamorphosis of digested food
into blood, excrete two or three gallons of fluid in a day to the
liver's two or three pints; yet witness our medieval solicitude for the
liver, for one among many organs. The liver is located near the upper
portion of the intestinal canal and connected by a tube (the bile duct)
to the rest of the excursion route. The following liver-persuading
knights-errant are prescribed and ordered by disciples of Hippocrates,
Galen, Herodicus, and Iccus, to treat with that digestive and
eliminative monarch, the Liver--usually at night-time, that the family
may not be disturbed. After making as good terms as possible they
journey on, riotously churning and swashing the long, tortuous canal
and its contents in search of ancient toxic gases and feces lodged in
the lower bowel. It is believed by the prescribers that the length of
the journey adds dignity to the drastic, dredging knights-errant. The
reader needs no introduction to the podophyllins, the aloes, the
jalaps, the rhubarbs, the mercurys, the croton oils, the sennas, the
salines, the seltzers, the Carters, the Beechams, the Websters, the
Pierces, the Ayers, the Ripans, the Warners, and others belonging to
"The Four Hundred" fashionable grenadiers, with their credentials and
stamp!
After these knights-errant have paid their respects to King Liver, and
ended their long, tortuous and eventful journey, they depart and leave
behind them burning and painful abdominal and anal regrets, and then
some soothing, stimulating and tonic remedies are in order, so that the
dredged though chronically constipated sufferer and his friends may
still hope that life will be spared to repeat the same nauseating and
often painful process in a few days or weeks, taking, in the meanwhile,
milder bile-bouncers daily as a reminder to King Liver that the time
for the knights-errant is coming again.
Sufferers from chronic constipation receive assurances that by the use
of these "remedies" the anemia will be corrected, nutrition and
digestion restored, atony of the liver and intestines overcome, yellow
complexion and morbid feeling disappear. In short, remove the numerous
symptoms and "causes" of toxicity of the body and of chronic
constipation, and proclaim the victory of Powder and Pill!
All of us would believe Medicus, the son who so abjectly follows in the
footsteps of his father, if we could really feel the possibility of
such a victory; but the protests of our bowels are living witnesses
against the validity of the medieval practice as here described; and we
ask for a modern scientific solution of the fulness and foulness within
and the fatuity without.
I must now apologize to the large class of sufferers from chronic
constipation for hurting their feelings. I know very well how seriously
they have been compelled to regard their trouble, and out of respect
for their protracted suffering and efforts to get relief I should
instead have sympathized and condoled with them in their dire
misfortune. But we all know and realize that there are occasions when
we get into awful and painful predicaments, and, when the whole
situation is taken in, it becomes comical and ridiculous, so that for a
time we cannot treat it seriously, even when old Chronic Biliousness
and the mighty knights-errant are having a deadly combat at our
internal and external (and possibly infernal) expense.