Another writer, viz., Christianus Langius, says, that this bird when attacked with constipation at some distance from the river, and not able to fly from weakness, would be seen to crawl to the water’s edge with drooping wings and there take its rectal treatment, when in a few minutes it would fly away in full vigor of regained strength.
Nor do I even claim to have rediscovered this system of treatment, although it is a common practice in these days to revamp old theories and discoveries, and try to foist them upon the public as entirely new propositions. The credit for the resuscitation of this ancient remedial practice belongs, without doubt, to Dr. A. Wilford Hall, of New York, who practiced the treatment on himself for forty years before giving its principles to the public, thereby fully proving its merits.
The following experience from the pen of Dr. H. T. Turner, of Washington, affords incontestable proof of the allegation made, that the colon is the seat of disease, and his testimony should be read with extreme care. It is no fanciful, theoretical statement, but the ghastly revelation of an appalling reality. While reading his statement, the reader will do well to refer to the engraving, representing the digestive apparatus, at the commencement of this book, as it will greatly facilitate his comprehension of the matter.
“In 1880 I lost a patient with inflammation of the bowels, and requested of the friends the privilege of holding a _post-mortem_ examination, as I was satisfied that there was some foreign substance in or near the Ileo-cœcal valve, or in that apparently useless appendage, the Appendicula Vermiformis. (See explanation of engraving.)
“The autopsy developed a quantity of grape seed and popcorn, filling the lower enlarged pouch of the colon and the opening into the Appendicula Vermiformis. This, from the mortified and blackened condition of the colon alone, indicated that my diagnosis was correct. I opened the colon throughout its entire length of five feet, and found it filled with fæcal matter encrusted on its walls and into the folds of the colon, in many places dry and hard as slate, and so completely obstructing the passage of the bowels as to throw him into violent colic (as his friends stated), sometimes as often as twice a month, for years, and that powerful doses of physic was his only relief; that all the doctors had agreed that it was bilious colic. I observed that this crusted matter was evidently of long standing, the result of years of accumulation, and although the remote cause, not the immediate cause of his death. The sigmoid-flexure (see engraving), or bend in the colon on the left side, was especially full, and distended to double its natural size, filling the gut uniformly, with a small hole the size of one’s little finger through the center, through which the recent fæcal matter passed. In the lower part of the sigmoid-flexure, just before descending to form the rectum, and in the left hand upper corner of the colon as it turns toward the right, were pockets eaten out of the hardened fæcal matter, in which were eggs of worms and quite a quantity of maggots, which had eaten into the sensitive mucous membrane, causing serious inflammation of the colon and its adjacent parts, and as recent investigation has established as a fact, were the cause of his hemorrhoids, or piles, which I learned were of years’ standing. The whole length of the colon was in a state of chronic inflammation; still this man considered himself well and healthy until the unfortunate eating of the grape seed and popcorn, and had no trouble in getting his life insured in one of the best companies in America.