FIND a fat man and nine times out of ten you have found an “auto-intoxicated” person.
Likewise nine times out of ten toxaemia is of intestinal origin. The toxins elaborated in the colon are absorbed into the system and depress glandular function which in turn prevents proper tissue oxidation with the resulting deposit of unhealthy fat. The bodily lethargy thus produced resulting in lessened exercise and intestinal stasis also brings on corpulency. So the vicious circle goes.
The clinical inventory of an obese person should include, among other tests, at detailed study of the intestinal flora as well as careful chemical and microscopic tests to determine the kind and degree of the toxemia.
The use of laxatives and purgatives is to be discouraged since they activate the growth of the toxin producing organisms. Salines, particularly magnesium sulphate, which stimulate liver and gall bladder activity are used in the treatment of selected cases but the wholesale use of such waters in Spas or as the result of catch phrasing bottle labels and literature is to be discouraged.
Irrigations, properly given, have a real place in obesity therapeutics but such therapy has become a twentieth century medical fad and on account of the haphazard methods used by thousands of poorly trained technicians the method will inevitably fall into disfavor. Every large city has numerous irrigating stalls in conjunction with beauty parlors, clubs and hotels. Many inexperienced individuals have opened up private irrigating parlors and treat colonic disorders without knowledge of their pathology, cause or specific cure. These persons are really practicing medicine without a license under the protection of a glass jar and rubber hose. They use chemicals which have potentiality for harm, they prescribe diets, they distend inflamed colons with gallons of fluid and postpone the diagnosis of many otherwise curable conditions through the false hope and palliative treatment which they give.
A word here should be said in favor of the humble, old-fashioned enema, or coloclyster, which if properly taken has none of the demerits of the irrigation. In conjunction with an obesity cure it is an asset of especial value.
But even a course of self-given enemas should be taken only under the advice of a physician. No chemicals other than salt one level teaspoonful to a quart of water should be used by the patient without the physician’s advice. Soap or glycerin may irritate, sodium bicarbonate may cause tremendous distension or may change the intestinal reaction unfavorably, and the various intestinal antiseptics so recklessly used may do untold injury to the delicate lining of the colon.
A daily enema with salt concentration about the same as the blood is an excellent and safe procedure as an adjunct to a reduction cure. It should be given in two stages+a pint or a quart at body temperature to empty the rectum and after a rest of a few minutes a two-quart enema given slowly with the bag suspended about a foot or so above the colon level. The merit of such clyster therapy lies in the fact that bacteria are mechanically carried out of the colon and the flora thereby simpli
fled.. Also by such colonic drainage many calories of food materials are expelled from the body. Also the improved liver and pancreatic function and gall bladder drainage produce a therapeutic renaissance of the body which hastens fat meta-morphosis and reduces weight.
But many cases will require more specific colonic treatment. Spastic colons, atonic ones, colons with diverticula, kinks or adhesions, fissures, hemorrhoids, tight anal sphincters complicating the toxemia problem often baffle the wits of the best trained physicians. And yet in no field of therapeutics do “fools step in where wise men dare not tread” as in treatment of the colonic labyrinth.
There is altogether too much tampering with the human colon and it is about time that someone started an anti-colonic crusade.