Word: enema
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Brooklyn specialist, Dr. William Lieberman, is one of the foremost U.S. authorities on the history of the enema. Last week, in the Review of Gastroenterology, he wrote with scholarly authority on his cathartic theme...
Ancient Art. The origin of the enema is veiled in the mist of antiquity. The Hindu Vedas hint of its use in 2000 B.C. In the sth Century Herodotus noted that "the Egyptians clear themselves on three consecutive days every month." The Egyptians learned the art, said the Roman Naturalist Pliny, from the long-beaked ibis, who "washes the inside of his body by introducing water with his beak into the channel by which ... the residue of our food should leave...
Hippocrates preferred enemas to purges, but the Greeks rejected the strange concoctions of bile, vinegar, etc. used by other peoples in favor of water or simple salt solutions, perhaps with a little oil or honey added. Centuries later, physicians in medieval Spain described the nutrient enema and the first bulb syringes...
...patients were old men with severe ulcers of ten to 35 years' standing. Their excruciating night pains were relieved, and their ulcers disappeared, "rapidly and often completely." Great practical importance of the treatment is that it is cheap. Anybody can use it at home with an ordinary enema can for a container, a coat rack for a prop...