Chapter 4 INDIGESTION, INTESTINAL GAS, AND OTHER MATTERS.

We noted the fact that the "digestive secretions" in a man weighing 140 pounds amount to twenty-three pounds in twenty-four hours; now add to these the food and liquids taken in that period, and you will form some estimate of the work done in the human chemical laboratory in its normal and abnormal states.

We noted further that substances confined too long in receptacles decompose and generate pathogenic poisons, that is, poisons productive of disease; and that the intestinal reservoirs are no exception to this law of putrefactive changes. How could we avoid drawing the inference, therefore, that disease-breeding germs, (generated in the organism and hence called "autogenetic"), and their auto-infection, i.e., absorption by the system, are an inevitable consequence of the undue retention and fermentation of the contents of these reservoirs: a consequence, in other words, of that intestinal uncleanliness commonly called biliousness, constipation, indigestion.

By far the most common and immediate source of autogenetic (self-produced) poisons and their auto-infection, is some degree of chronic constipation and the deadening, smothering effects of constipation on digestion; an effect analogous to what takes place when we allow waste material or ashes to bank up against a fire, shutting off its draft. Does the fire then continue to digest the coal? Clog up the receptacle for ashes and the coal grows cold. Dam up the colon or sigmoid and digestion is disturbed, diminished and debased, as evidenced by the local and general discomfort, and later by the train of inevitable disorders.

Indigestion is a household word. It has the widest range of all the diseases, because it forms a part of almost every other; and some diseases, such as chronic catarrh and pulmonary consumption, are in many cases produced by indigestion; which in turn had its source in chronic constipation caused by injury or inflammation of the lower bowel, as explained in our first chapter.

Diminished nutrition, impoverished blood, and loss of weight of from ten to twenty-five pounds, are the signs that indicate the coming disaster to the sufferer from auto-intoxication: the thoroughly poisoned state of the system resulting from auto-infection.

Vessels used by the dairyman and by those who furnish us with food products and liquids are kept scrupulously clean. Why? Because it is a question of loss of trade-of money. Should these vessels be used when foul from fermentation or putrefaction of their contents, Wealth would flee from the coffers of our purveyors, and the Boards of Health would, or rather should, take a hand in the matter. And these same purveyors, by the way, why do they care more for Wealth than for Health, their own and ours? But why are we all of us so neglectful of Inner cleanliness and so careful of Outer? The receptacles of the inner man reek with augean filth, and we cleanse them not. The immortal fountains of Health and Happiness are dammed, blasted and degraded by just this neglect of our imperative duty; the duty of furnishing full opportunity for the functions of replenishment and life, by keeping the sewer passages clear.

Are a sour stomach and foul intestinal canal fit receptacles for food and liquids? When our receptacles are in this condition, why do we add more material for the generation of poisons of the ptomain and leucomain classes, and morbid gaseous elements? It has been demonstrated that during fermentation an apple will evolve a volume of gas six hundred times its own size. What folly then to add to the fermenting mass! Food taken under such conditions will produce results not hard to imagine.

The gases that are commonly found in the stomach and small intestines are carbonic acid, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen; while, besides all these, sulphureted and carbureted hydrogen are found in the large intestine, causing in a normal state the necessary and useful distention of the alimentary canal. The writer has long regarded the abnormal production of gaseous substances in the intestinal canal from putrefactive changes as of itself not only a grave menace to health, but as a condition productive of morbific results of which we have still much to learn. The more or less constant and excessive distention of the whole or even of a part of the intestinal canal by gases is a serious condition, affecting as it does the various organs of the body, not only through the absorption of these gases into the general circulation but also through the reflex nervous reaction of these organs. It is astonishing what amount of mechanical force is exerted by the gases in the intestinal canal. They distend not only the muscular walls of the intestines and stomach but the strong abdominal walls as well, until the clothing worn has to be loosened for ease and comfort. This more or less extreme mechanical pressure may account for many cases of hernia, prolapse of the uterus, dislocation of various organs, disturbance of the circulation of the blood, and interference with the function of the nervous system, as indicated by its many protests in the way of aches and pains. Naval-constructor Hobson has lately demonstrated the dynamic power of gas confined in bags or receptacles in raising battleships; and it still remains for some physiologist or pathologist to demonstrate the morbid dynamic results of gases confined in the alimentary apparatus. The deleterious effect of the abnormal quantity of gases on all the organs of the body is imperfectly understood at present, but will be better apprehended when we are able to study more minutely the pathogenic poisons of the human system. It is known, however, that a stream of carbonic acid gas, or even of hydrogen, will paralyze a muscle against which it is directed.