Those that possess even a modicum of sense will easily understand how a muscular tube like the anus, rectum, sigmoid flexure, etc., when invaded and traversed for eight to ten or more inches by disease, will offer obstruction to the descent and escape of gases and feces. All are familiar with the contraction that occurs when a finger, hand, or limb is inflamed; how little we can then use the diseased part until all of the inflammation has left the muscular tissue. Why do we give so much attention to an inflamed external part and none at all to the all-important internal organ for the expulsion of the sewage of the body? The parts are not “weak” when contracted with inflammation: weakness is not what is the matter with them. The trouble is that the muscular fiber is then too active, made so by the excessive irritation of the local disorder. Irritation of muscular tissue always causes contraction of its fiber. Such contraction well accounts for constipation. We are a nation of constipated people, so constipated indeed that we have developed dyspepsia and neurasthenia. As I have already stated, the chief ill of “civilized” people is proctitis; the chief symptom of proctitis is constipation; the chief symptom of constipation is dyspepsia; and the chief symptom of dyspepsia is neurasthenia, and so on and on--all of them the outcome of imperfect elimination of morbid matter from the intestinal canal. The common sense learned in the treatment of external parts should be applied to such diseased portions of the body as the anus, rectum, etc. Common sense declares that an enema ought to be used on all occasions of undue retention of the contents of the bowels. It is the only sensible thing under the circumstances. Yet, for the last four hundred years, only independent men and women have had the courage to proclaim its merits, since the subject was under the ban of both laymen and physicians. Now that we have learned the absolute necessity of such a device, it is to be hoped that the taboo will be removed, and that the numerous victims of proctitis will be instructed in the wisdom of availing themselves of the valuable aid of the enema in either curing proctitis or preventing it from growing worse, while they are at the same time securing relief through its use by the removal of feces and gases several times daily, thus preventing the absorption of poison, which the retention of waste invariably facilitates. CHAPTER II. PATHOLOGY OF THE ANUS AND RECTUM; OR, THE GENESIS OF CONSTIPATION. When an affliction is seemingly universal it is reasonable to conclude that it springs from universal conditions. Proctitis, the most widespread disease of civilized man, originates very early in life, and develops in after years numerous painful symptoms--such as piles or hemorrhoids, constipation, etc.