Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/139

 that there is fallacy in the medical sub-argument against the use of the enema to the effect that no absorption of retained fecal material can take place. But medicine goes even further in the process of self-stultification when it recommends the employment of nutrient enemata. Denying that the contents of the bowels may be returned in part to the circulation through the walls of the. gut, it nevertheless affirms that food material may in this manner be absorbed. It therefore assumes that tissue is nourished by matter that has not undergone the process of digestion. It is also readily seen that food absorbed through the walls of the colon is not received by the portal or nourishing part of the circulation, but enters directly into the venous blood, which is itself loaded with impurity awaiting elimination. To deliver household water to the faucets from the sewers of a city Avould be deemed an act of insanity, yet analogy is plainly evident when this method of transmission is compared with that of food introduced into the human body per rectum. When the patient is bed-ridden or abnormally weakened, the knee-chest posture in taking the enema may prove too exhausting; and, when this condition exists, a canvas