CHAPTER VII.

IRRIGATION OF THE ASSIMILATIVE AND ELIMINATIVE ORGANS.

The habits of people in general do not seem so bad when one considers the average individual’s limitations as to knowledge and thought. The fact is that most people don’t know, don’t think, and hence don’t care. Let them read more science, think more sensibly, and act more seriously; then their habits will be more satisfactory.

The alimentary receptacle--the stomach or vat in which foods and liquids are received and mixed--is habitually converted by many persons into a chemical retort for all sorts of drugs and remedies, with the view of reaching and relieving the ills of the various organs of the body, from dandruff to corns. The writer believes that he can give more and better reasons for his confidence in the therapeutic value of remedies than most other physicians, but he wishes to emphasize here the transcendent importance of common sense in their administration. Before and above all else, however, what is wanted is a clean gastro-intestinal canal; and his claim is that water, properly used, is the best agent to effect that cleansing. On a par with this canal in importance are the eliminative tissues and organs of the system: the kidneys, mucous membrane, and skin. What therapeutic agent, properly used, is better than water? After all the assimilative and eliminative organs and tissues have been thoroughly rinsed with pure, soft water, then, if it be still necessary to administer a chemical agent, one may be selected that will, with these organs and tissues in better condition, work wonders. If you are so foolish as to allow yourself to become foul from head to foot, cleanse yourself with water before resorting to chemical aids.

Somehow or other the mass of even intelligent people, not to speak of the great mass of the ignorant, and I may add even my co-workers in the healing art, are not aware of the supreme want and worth of water for internal and external therapeutic purposes; they do not realize how the stomach, the bowels, and the kidneys cry for it in their neglected and infected condition.

The stomach serves as a convenient receptacle to dump things into after the palate has been entertained and pleased--and about everything is swallowed but pure, soft water. As a rule the stomach takes very kindly to water. It is, moreover, not so piggish as to absorb it all and leave its surface in a foul condition, covered with ropy, slimy products of imperfect digestion. Immediately after deglutition of water, the stomach does just what it ought to do: its muscles contract and dump the contents of the stomach into the duodenum, where the principal act of digestion is accomplished.

As its name implies, the stomach (stow-make) is a receptacle made for the purpose of storing stuffs for nutrition. Here they are mixed and broken up somewhat, and then deposited in the second or real digestive apparatus--the duodenum. This latter organ requires water and organic fluids in liberal quantities for its digestive operations. Both organs need cleansing after they have finished their work, and the digestive and assimilative vessels require water, not only to convey the building material to their harbors, but also to eliminate effectually the worn-out tissues and the residuals of the digestive process.

It has been said that were man to discover heaven (a clean and healthy locality) he would at once convert it into a hell (a vile and filthy one). Man is possessed of an organism of whose constituent elements water forms over eighty per cent. The alvine discharges ought to contain the same percentage of water, if not more. The mucous membrane and skin, to be kept clean, soft, fresh, plump, moist, and free from odors, require their appropriate irrigation. Man may keep himself clean, both inside and out, by irrigating himself before each meal daily. The well-watered and well-washed body and brain constitute a heaven on earth for the indwelling spirit that needs these for its manifestation.

It does seem sometimes that man in his ignorance gets nothing right except to walk forward instead of backward. Even so, most likely he walked on all fours for ages, judging from his progress to date, before he learned to walk on his hind legs. To-day we find him self-poisoned, auto-intoxicated, a gastro-intestinal neurasthenic. His bowels are filled and stretched with ancient feces and gases, and his stomach is burdened with undigested food and tenacious mucus.

The average man’s scanty excreta from the bowels are dry, hard, lumpy, and foul, exhaling a noxious odor; and these excretions may be passed once a day, or once in two or three days, or with some persons too often, should diarrhea supervene. Two-thirds to three-fourths of the fecal mass is absorbed by the system every day; and this absorption is accompanied more or less constantly by symptoms of indigestion, biliousness, uric acid, and many other distressful conditions.

His breath and the exhalations of a garbage-can are much alike; in fact they are twins, the only difference between the human and metallic receptacles being that one is capable of walking and the other is not. Both manifest the same conditions.

His mucous membrane is covered more or less with catarrhal discharges, which result in granulated deposits, especially near the orifices. The skin is often sallow, dry, yellow, scaly, flabby. The hair is dry, non-oily, with a scaly scalp, and often there is a loss or total lack of hair. The teeth are decayed, the gums are found to recede, and the eyes, muscles, joints, etc., are more or less affected by calcareous deposits.

Man is seldom or never in a normal physiological condition. He is either obese or emaciated and lean. Most bodies are anemic and ill-conditioned, a prey to several ailments. Of course, civilized man uses drugs; he would not be civilized were he not to use on occasion a stimulant, tonic, sedative, narcotic, etc., and he has to keep in continual touch with a doctor, to take care of him by prescribing special diet, fasts, exercise, and what not for his numerous bodily infirmities. Generally these prescriptions are ineffective and leave him physically weaker and financially poorer, with the barren consolation that he has really tried everything under heaven that the wisest knew or that money could buy. Yes, indeed, he tries everything: everything but _water_--pure, soft, spring or distilled water. He never--like the flirt--“thought of such a thing”! Very few “humanals” think it worth while to irrigate themselves inside and out.

Victims of semi-ignorance, too, get things most abominably mixed. They are often half wrong and half right; hence they never enjoy good, sound, robust health and its blessings. Physiologically, these people are what old-time pastors used to describe as lukewarm--neither hot nor cold, neither good nor bad, neither dirty nor clean, neither fish nor fowl, neither one thing nor another. So we find them also complaining and looking for the fountain of health and strength, but not looking very anxiously--they are not interested enough in the matter. Whenever they possess an equal mixture of ignorance and laziness, there is not much hope for them.

Note the position of the stomach in health, and how, by slight muscular action, it can free itself of its contents. When dilatation or displacement, or both, occur, the power of rapidly expelling its contents is diminished to the extent in which the change from the normal position and size takes place. I have found that, if there is a normal passing down of the ingesta and also of the feces, the stomach will perform its functions perfectly. Fear of “stomach trouble” is groundless if you keep the digestive and eliminative apparatus in good working order. But this requires that you must keep them clean, and to do so you must drink plenty of water before each meal.

The organs are held in position by a ligamentous attachment and abundant fatty tissue, which serve as a connective cushion that furnishes aid in supporting the organs in their proper place. In chronic cases of self-poisoning, the victim, as a rule, becomes anemic and emaciated, and loses thereby the fatty support required by the organs. They are consequently apt to become displaced and the muscular tissue weakened, with the consequent pendulous condition of the abdomen often observed in both children and adults.

The clay-colored, flabby, obese, anemic victims may retain their worthless adipose tissue; but they suffer quite as keenly as if they had lost it--from the fact that this tissue is impregnated with poison and filled with gas, and from the further fact that this abnormal tissue presses on the vital organs here and there as the victim wheezes or puffs along on his road through existence.

There is not the slightest doubt that nine-tenths of gastro-intestinal ills and their effects can be prevented or cured by thorough irrigation of the canal, from mouth to anus, if it does not itself perform the cleansing process three times in twenty-four hours.