Word: enemas
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...mechanical enema machine. Price...
French Fashion. The17th Century was the Golden Age of the enema, or clyster as it was then called. The crude instruments of yesteryear-tubes of bone or wood attached to animal bladders or silk bags-were replaced by a formidable piston-&-cylinder device. An apothecary or doctor's assistant, marching through the streets with a clyster tube on his shoulder (see cut), became a common sight, as a mania for enemas swept France...
Louis XIV had over 2,000 enemas during his reign, sometimes holding court while the ceremony progressed. Aristocratic enemas were delicately tinted and scented. They were also so widely used as a means of poisoning that Louis XIV set up a special detective agency to combat the wave of enema-murders among his nobility...
Scientific Sobriety. About 1800 the carnival spirit dwindled sharply, and the age of scientific sobriety began. An extension of the enema principle came in 1895 with the invention of colonic irrigation by Professor Ismar of Berlin-a controversial treatment which Historian Lieberman dismisses as very rarely necessary and "on the wane at the present time...
Simplicity is the enema keynote in the Atomic Age. Best ingredients: "plain lukewarm water, or perhaps just a trace of bicarbonate of soda or ordinary salt." Warns Dr. Lieberman: "Soap is a very popular ingredient now, unjustly so, because in most cases it is unnecessary and irritating...