A society leader, in speaking of her ills to a woman friend, said: “I am ‘lousy’ with uric acid.” From infancy to old age, mankind is more or less filled with uric acid and other poisons—the result of a foul intestinal canal. Poisoned blood is a common symptom, and it arises from an almost universal cause—chronic con­sti­pa­tion. So universal is con­sti­pa­tion of the bowels in illness that it is the first duty of a physician to prescribe some remedy to unload them.

It is said that a Boston doctor, whose practice was largely among the wealthy classes, used to say: “There is no use in physicians pretending to be anything else—they always smell of rhubarb.” And in an address to a class of medical students an old doctor once said that he and his associate practitioners had found that calomel and opium filled every want in the ills they were called upon to treat.

For ages all mankind has striven to find a remedy effectively to clean the intestinal tract. Pills, powders, tablets, wafers, suppositories, salts, teas, candies, and syrups have been administered—all with that sole purpose. Efforts have been made to accomplish this object by utilizing every possible device and contrivance known to human ingenuity. Calisthenics, massage, physical-culture exercise, mental therapy, horseback riding, “dieting,” fasting—these are some of the many means resorted to in order to “sterilize” the foul, con­sti­pated intestinal canal.

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.

The diagnostic error of mistaking effect for cause, however, is frequently made. Patients are treated for one of the secondary symptoms—say uric acid—with a view to abate that disorder and restore health, when treatment for the specific cause of con­sti­pa­tion—proctitis (inflammation of the anus and rectum)—would restore the patient to his normal vigor. Pale, anemic sufferers from con­sti­pa­tion are often told that the restoration of their blood to its normal state will effect a complete cure. No idea could be further amiss, for if the poisoned victims take coal oil, fish oil, malt compounds, iron, etc., as tonics, into a disordered stomach and unclean bowels, how can anything more than imaginary relief be obtained? Is it not evident that the chief disorder, proctitis, the main cause of the trouble, has in no way been reached?

In other complications arising from con­sti­pa­tion, a favorite diagnosis is one of the secondary symptoms—“atony” of the bowels, liver, or kidneys. In these cases nux vomica and various poisonous compounds are given, but here also it stands to reason that the administering of remedies for symptoms cannot effect a cure of a chronic local disease of the anus, rectum, or colon. Then, again, by way of variety, a diagnosis of “uric acid” is made for which irritant drugs are administered to increase the eliminating or excretory action of the bowels and kidneys. It is utter folly and absurdity to attempt the cleansing of the intestinal tract by laxatives, cathartics, purgatives, exercise, etc., and to make the kidneys and liver, overtaxed from foul bowel products, do still more work by giving medicines to increase the urinal and biliary secretions.

It does not require a knowledge of the principles of physiology and pathology to know that no sufferer from chronic con­sti­pa­tion can be permanently benefited if any or all of the secondary symptoms already noted be treated with the usual list of drugs and the cause ignored.

Much stress is laid upon the quantity and quality of food consumed by most people, and many generalizers attribute chronic con­sti­pa­tion, uric acid, etc., to this very thing. Surely the average person knows that too much or too little food taken at regular intervals is not conducive to good health—a view that I have found borne out by a large majority of my patients, who rarely overstepped the limits and knew when a diminution in the supply of nourishment was advisable.

In the last analysis, the principal cause of ill health is lack of elimination of the excretory organs. When the bowels fail to do their proper work, the functions of the other organs of the body become correspondingly affected and impaired, and general debility ensues.

In previous chapters, also in my book, Intestinal Ills, I have made plain the causes contributing to chronic con­sti­pa­tion and the use of enemas and their origin. Prehension and elimination are two subjects that are vital to the welfare of man. If the eliminating power of the intestinal canal is normally active, the fortunate individual may eat abundantly, or really in excess of the requirements of the system, and still escape any ill effects, such as indigestion, biliousness, acid in the urine, etc. The hearty consumer of food whose bowels eliminate properly may suffer a loss of appetite, but it will not be accompanied with foulness of the digestive apparatus.

When all the organs of the body perform their functions in a normal manner, no part of the structure is in immediate need of repair. Every organ whose function consists in building tissues, muscles, or some other part of the body, having a sufficient supply of reserve nutriment on hand, makes known this state throughout the organism; hence there is no craving for food, no appetite, although the tongue, stomach, and intestines are in a normal condition. In this state of surplus of nourishment the person may omit a few meals or partake sparingly until the expenditure is equal to the income. But such physiological happiness is not for the person whose intestinal canal and system are clogged and foul from undue retention of excrementitious material, causing no desire for food, while all the atomic builders of the body are wanting nourishment and protesting through the nervous system against their impoverished condition.

Sufferers from self-poisoning, as described in this chapter, should irrigate the system thoroughly by frequent drinking and by copious injections of water into the bowels. The action of the enema if properly given and the drinking of water that is pure or distilled increase the quantity of urine and diminish the renal congestion, while increasing the eliminative action of the skin.

Irrigation of the bowels for fifty minutes or more with hot water (120 to 125 degrees) increases the action of the kidneys. Hot irrigation (125 to 135 degrees) is especially recommended to increase the discharge of urine and the action of the skin, and should be continued for sixty minutes or more. The Intestinal Recurrent Douche, described in a subsequent chapter, is an excellent instrument for the employment of hot water to produce diuresis and diaphoresis.

The Chemung Spring Water and Clynta Double-Distilled Water, sold in New York, are excellent drinking waters and can be obtained at a moderate price.