THE USUAL DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF BOWEL TROUBLES WRONG.
Herodotus tells us that among certain tribes when a man fell sick his
next-door neighbor did not wait for him to become thin but killed him
at once, lest by the loss of his adipose his flesh might be rendered
less appetizing.
But alas! in this age of constipation and piles, of self-generated
poisons and self-infection, how changed is the custom! Our next-door
neighbor, the doctor, waits till we are really thin, and then begins to
feed and grow fat on our ills! In our day, through the continuous
process of self-poisoning we take on no flesh from puny, peaked
childhood, or we insidiously lose what little flesh we had, and when
our bones are well exposed, become alarmed, realize that we are sick,
rush for the doctor, and dispossess ourselves of our spare cash.
Very frequently, as stated in the first chapter, auto-infection begins
in infancy and slowly but steadily progresses, but it may not be before
adult age is reached and one or more organs are seriously diseased that
it becomes apparent to all. The vital round of the alternate
building-up and breaking-down of the system has been going on
unceasingly during these years of increasing infection, but prematurely
the balance between up and down is lost in favor of down; the
building-up process becoming feebler, slower, and the breaking-down
process quicker, easier. What can the inevitable outcome be but
_emaciation_ and _anemia_, and all their attendant suffering and
consequences? It is the superabundance of vitality in the growing child
that retards (inhibits) the morbid changes going on in the blood and
tissues of the system; but the process is all the more insidious by
being thus restrained, and its very subtlety and stealth beguile us all
into fancied security: parents, friends, physicians--all are deceived.
As stated in a previous chapter, the first unwelcome visitor, in
infancy, is inflammation of the integument and mucous membrane of the
anal orifice, invited by the uncleanliness involved in the use of
diapers; and this visitor takes up its residence slowly along several
inches of the lower bowel. Its first symptoms are likely to be
constipation, flatulency, colic, indigestion, bacterial and other
poisons, occasionally diarrhea, and the usual general disturbance of
the system as above detailed. It is admitted by all authors that
inflammation of the anus, rectum, etc., is by far the most common
disease that afflicts mankind at all ages; and I maintain that the
natural result of such inflammation is a more or less extensive
occlusion of the lower bowel, which in turn involves an undue retention
of the feces, and thus we have the foul intestinal canal and stomach
called gastric and intestinal indigestion.
The wrong treatment of constipation, diarrhea, indigestion and
auto-intoxication up to the present time has been due to improper
diagnosis. Writers on these subjects speak of them as causes when they
are merely symptoms. And the remedies for these "causes" are even more
numerous. _Mistaken diagnosis on the one hand, measured doses on the
other, and there you have the scientific doctor!_ The primary cause,
inflammation, like the original spark applied to dry shavings, sets up
morbid changes in the various parts of the digestive canal and the
other organs of the body, and these "set up" or established changes are
properly secondary or derivative causes accompanied by their own
symptoms. The primary disease and symptoms may exist for five, ten,
twenty or more years before any pronounced secondary or derivative
diseases and their symptoms occur or are noticeable to a sufficiently
marked degree.
The chronic character of the malady, and the complication of primary
with secondary diseases and their symptoms, have thoroughly
disconcerted the doctors. Hence the many "causes" assigned for
indigestion, constipation, etc., and the many kinds of remedies
prescribed with the one sure result, FAILURE; and hence, also, not a
few of the self- and drug-intoxicated ones dubbed, or actually
developed into, hypochondriacs. Diagnosis wrong, treatment wrong,
failure certain, and the foulness of the intestinal canal continued!
This is the experience and testimony of the many, many sufferers from
the most common malady that afflicts humanity from infancy to old age,
and which will continue to afflict the great majority until it is
properly understood and treated.
When a sewer of a town is obstructed, the most sensible plan is to
begin the investigation at the outlet and then proceed up, section
after section, to trace the obstacle that had occasioned the
accumulation of debris. When the waste-pipes of a house are clogged, we
do not expect the plumber to go to the top of the building and poke
substances down the pipe to dislodge the unduly retained material some
twenty-five feet or more away. Nor would we believe him if he informed
us that the sewer-gas and overflow of waste in the house were the
_cause_ of the constipated condition of the drain. But just this is
what the doctor declares concerning our sewer; just this is what he
does when he doses it with laxatives, cathartics, purgatives. Such is
the treatment we receive when we rush to the doctor, or such the
treatment we give ourselves. The poor, sensitive, inflamed canal is
desecrated on all hands, though part of a house not made with hands--a
house that should be a home for the soul of man.