“I have been thus explicit in this description, from the fact that recent investigation has developed the fact that in the discovery described above, I had found but a prototype of at least seven-tenths of the human family in civilized life--the real cause of all diseases of the human body, excepting the grape seed and popcorn. That I had found the fountain of premature old age and death, for, as surprising as it may seem, out of 284 cases of autopsies held of late on the colon (they representing in their death nearly all the diseases known to our climate), but twenty-eight colons were found to be free from hardened, adhered matter, and in their normal healthy state, and that the 256 were all more or less as described above, except, perhaps, the grape seeds and popcorn. In many of them the colon was distended to double its natural size throughout its whole length, with a small hole through the center, and as far as could be learned, these last cases spoken of had regular evacuations of the bowels each day. Many of the colons contained large maggots from four to six inches long, and pockets of eggs and maggots, while blood and pus were frequently present.”
The question is often asked, and naturally so, why this unnatural accumulation is in the colon? The horse and ox promptly obey the call of nature; they know no time or place, and are blessed with clean colons. So are the natives of Africa. But the demands of civilized life insist upon a time and place. Business, etiquette, opportunity, and a thousand and one excuses stand continually in the way, and nature’s call is put off to a more convenient season.
How many people are not presentable to themselves or friends, owing to the putrid smell of their bodies, so that in polite society strong colognes and other perfumes are used. Show me a woman who girts her waist with corsets or any tight clothing, and I will warrant you that the smell from her body will be sickening in the extreme. The special reason for this is, that the lacing comes immediately where the transverse colon crosses her body. Now, if the sigmoid-flexure becomes loaded, because of its folding upon itself, how much more will the transverse colon become clogged if unnaturally folded upon itself by compression from each side folding it, as demonstrated in some instances, almost double the whole length, into two extra elbows, where it, if natural, is straight (see engraving on next page). Many reasons have been given by physiologists and humanitarians, why it is injurious for the lady to lace, but this reason outweighs them all. Wear the clothing loose, clean out the colon and heal it up, and you will smell sweet, and life will be a continual blessing; for if the main sewer of the body is closed or clogged, nature has but three other outlets: the capillaries or pores of the skin, the lungs in exhalation, or the kidneys. If the colon is clogged, the penned-up acid permeations of the stomach and duodenum will have to seek other outlets, which is indicated by the putrid