Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/131

 elimination, which is the one source of septic poisoning and of subsequent disease; but so long as food ingested is cooked food and soft food, and so long as it is not properly masticated, just so long will assistance be required to evacuate the contents of the bowels. Inferentially this fact has been recognized for ages, since drug statistics show that ninety per cent, of all medication is aimed at the intestines.

Objections are made to the use of the enema on the grounds that it is not natural; that it tends to dilate permanently the bowel ; and that its constant employment will ultimately destroy the functioning of the colon. In answer to the first difference it is found that drugs taken into the system for the purpose of causing a movement of the bowels pass through a process similar to that to which ingested food is subjected. They are acted upon by the digestive juices in the stomach and small intestine, and are absorbed into the circulation. The liver, in its capacity of separator, objects to their introduction as harmful to the system and casts out with increased secretion of bile that portion which reaches it. The nerves governing the absorptive and secretive functions of the stomach