Ninety per cent of all drugs taken into the system under medical direction is aimed to affect the intestines. Evacuation of the colon, where there is constipation, is procured by the administration of a cathartic, a purgative. A purgative is a drug that is reputed to cleanse the bowels by frequent watery evacuations. But does it "cleanse" the bowels? The average conception of a cathartic is that it is a substance which through some power resident in itself removes fecal matter. This is not so. It moves nothing, either by mechanical or by chemical action. All cathartics, all purgatives, contain elements that are repugnant to both stomach and intestines, and that stimulate these organs into resistive action. In other words, they are poisons. When introduced into the system, they cause to be poured forth an augmented flow of intestinal secretion, which, to a degree liquifies the contents of the bowels, and, aided by similarly stimulated peristalsis, forces them to the rectum, thence to evacuation. The effect of the administration of a purgative then is one that results not because of any virtue peculiar to the medicine, but because the organs which it meets, objecting to the presence of a harmful intruder, act upon the drug and make instinctive efforts to cast it from the system. Any material introduced into the human body that cannot be utilized for its maintenance and growth is detrimental, and in a sense is a poison. This is true of all drugs.

Purgative medicines stimulate stomach and intestines to activities that are not natural, and they eventually bring about a refusal of these organs to perform their functions in a normal way. Once the purgative habit is acquired, the bowels after a time decline to act in the absence of the stimulus supplied by a pill or by some aperient. There is a homely saying that "castor oil loosens once and binds twice," and this is the very truth. Moreover the surfeit of digestive and other intestinal secretions called forth to expel the intruder causes the folds of the bowels to be filled with fluid fouled by dissolved waste, and the latter is partially absorbed ere evacuation can occur.

Extreme weakness results in many instances both from an unnatural drain upon these secretions and from poisoning of the circulation by absorption.

An apparently normal movement of the bowels may take place without clearing away impacted fecal matter. One may have a daily passage and yet be constipated. It is equally true that one may just have undergone a severe purge through the administration of a drug and still may have accumulation in the bowel. Nature at all times makes extreme effort to rid the colon of refuse, and in her striving a small channel is necessarily always open through the gut, else death would shortly occur.

If the taking of purgatives were confilled to adult life, the tale here told would be different in character, since functional derangement would be the principal harm effected. But cathartics are prescribed for infants and children in their growing years, and their indiscriminate use at this time of life is one of the great causes of intestinal non-development. Nutrition is lowered through digestive disturbance; inflammation caused by congestion is soothed by opiates; feeding and fermentation continue; development of the intestinal tract is arrested, or the tract in portions is paralyzed, thus affecting function. These conditions, if permitted to continue through adolescence, cannot be corrected by a lifetime of later natural existence.

It is evident that clean bowels are essential to perfect digestion, hence to pure blood, hence to health. The purgative fails in cleansing the colon. What, then, is the means to be employed when conditions such as have been described exist. When a conduit is badly incrusted with an accumulation of soluble matter, the course pursued to remove the coating is that of flushing repeatedly with clean water, and this is the process here advised when the colon is obstructed with body waste.

The enema, the internal bath, properly administered, will flush and cleanse the large intestine, will promote peristaltic action throughout the alimentary canal, and will fully suffuse the abdominal circulation with the most soothing and healthful of all fluids--pure water. And from its use there will result no depressing, no deleterious effects, either immediate or subsequent.

The enema or clyster has been known and used by man for centuries. Herodotus, who lived and wrote five hundred years before the birth of Christ, says of the Egyptians: "For three successive days in each month they purge the body by means of emetics and clysters, which is done out of a regard for their health, since they have a persuasion that every disease to which men are liable is occasioned by the substances whereon they feed." However, the manner of administration of the enema then and thereafter was such as not to be as efficacious in result as we have later discovered it may be. The idea was held that an accumulation of feces had gathered in the rectum and in the folds of the sigmoid flexure. For the evacuation of this material a small amount of water injected into the rectum in a sitting posture was found to be easy and effective. This portion of the intestine may be cleansed by the injection of from one pint to one quart of water--in fact this is about its capacity, a larger quantity rising above the curve of the bend. It was also formerly doubted whether water could be forced above the flexure unless pressure was employed, and for a long time those who used the rectal bath made no attempt to cause the fluid to reach the descending colon for fear of injury. It has been demonstrated that the entire bowel can and often does become clogged and incrusted with refuse, and that larger amounts of water may easily and safely be injected into the organ flushing it throughout its length.