HOW CHRONIC CONSTIPATION INJURES WOMEN


Other changes in the skin are those dependent on a damping down of the hearts muscle by the toxins, and upon a breaking up of the red corpuscles, which is called in the most marked condition “microbic cyanosis.” The limbs become very cold and this coldness becomes exaggerated as the extremities are approached. If the hand be passed over the shoulder it crosses abruptly from an area of warmth to one of comparative coldness.


PERHAPS the most conspicuous result of chronic constipation is the removal of fat. This brings about not only an appearance of premature senility, but also a series of changes of infinite importance to the individual, and especially to the female, in whom, for reasons which are quite obvious, fat plays a far larger share in supporting important organs and structures than it does in the male. The changes in the position of the several organs which follow on the loss of fat serve to exaggerate the existing stagnation in the gastro-intestinal tract and to produce a vicious circle. The removal of the pelvic fat results usually in a backward displacement of the fundus of the uterus, which rests upon the concavity of the rectum.

When the woman strains to evacuate the contents of the rectum she drives the large gorged fundus vertically downwards and the rectal lumen is compressed between it and the sacrum, or the uterus may be bent forwards, partly on account of the loss of fat and to a large extent because of the degeneration of its muscular wall which exists generally throughout the body. Consequent on the engorgement and the displacement or kinking of the uterus, a number of changes take place in that organ which call for the attention of the gynaecologist. As we shall see, auto-intoxication plays so large a part in the development of diseases of the female genito- urinary apparatus that the gynaecologist may also be regarded as a product of intestinal stasis.

If women were not imperfectly drained, the gynaecologist would not have been evolved. The removal of fat from the true pelvis permits of the greater descent of the caecum and small intestines into that cavity and exaggerates the obstruction of the ileal effluent correspondingly. The kidneys move freely in the space behind the peritoneum in which they were originally supported by a cushion of fat and changes ensue in these organs should the escape of blood or urine from them be controlled by their altered relationship to adjacent structures.

As regards the attractiveness of the woman, a matter of vital importance to her happiness, the loss of fat is a most serious factor. The formation of wrinkles, the prominence of bones, etc., are all most distressing and conspicuous features. The buttocks also become flat and flaccid, instead of firm and round, partly because of the disappearance of fat which enters so largely into their formation and partly because of the associated degeneration of the large gluteal muscles. The breasts also waste and flop downwards, and the whole form and contour of the woman alters conspicuously in the most objectionable manner.

The skin undergoes remarkable changes. It becomes thin, inelastic, sticky and pigmented, especially where it is exposed to any pressure or friction. This pigmentation is observed first in the eyelids, whence it spreads gradually over the face. The neck becomes brown and later almost chocolate-coloured. The skin of the axillae, abdomen, adjacent aspects of the thighs, and that covering the spinous processes of the vertebrae, becomes progressively darker and darker, and defined areas of even darker pigmentation may develop on these stained surfaces. The secretion from the flexures also becomes abundant and offensive. In some of the cases I have operated on this symptom has been such a marked feature as to render the patient very objectionable to others.

Other changes in the skin are those dependent on a damping down of the hearts muscle by the toxins, and upon a breaking up of the red corpuscles, which is called in the most marked condition “microbic cyanosis.” The limbs become very cold and this coldness becomes exaggerated as the extremities are approached. If the hand be passed over the shoulder it crosses abruptly from an area of warmth to one of comparative coldness. This corresponds to a line drawn transversely round the centre of the deltoid. The skin of the back of the upper arm is very thick and feels as if it were affected by a firm, brawny oedema. Its colour is bluish, and in some cases even livid. It is liable to be covered with hard, pointed pustules.

This condition exists to a much more marked degree in the girl than in the woman, and may be sufficiently conspicuous to render the wearing of short sleeves impossible. The skin of the forearm and hand is mottled, being bluish and yellow in patches, while the fingers may be quite blue or cyanotic. The legs present the same condition, and usually in a greater degree. The patient frequently complains that she has no feeling up to her knees, even in moderately warm weather. These people are better in warm weather and in fairly high altitudes, and are always worse in the cold, and by the sea. In some cases the condition was so marked as to have been called Raynauds disease by experienced observers.

The muscular system degenerates in a very marked manner. The muscles waste and become soft, and in advanced cases tear with the greatest facility. In consequence the individual assumes positions of rest. In young life the muscular debility produces the deformities which are called dorsal excurvation or round shoulders, but which are more scientifically described as the “symmetrical posture of rest of the trunk,” lateral curvature or scoliosis, which is better designated as the “asymmetrical posture of rest of the trunk,” flat-foot and knock-knee.

The breast behaves in a characteristics manner in auto- intoxication, so much so that it may be regarded as the barometer of the degree of poisoning. It presents at first induration, which commences in the upper and outer zone of the left breast, extending subsequently to the entire organ on both sides. Cystic or other degenerative change may ensue, and at a later period cancer appears with remarkable frequency in these damaged organs. I have found as many as seven distinct nodules of cancer in a hard, lumpy breast in which the presence of that disease was not suspected. One of the most remarkable results of removing the source of auto-intoxication is the rapidity with which even extreme degrees of degeneration of the breast disappear, and the organ regains its normal form and texture after operation on the colon.

In women who are toxic the infection of the genital tract is an extremely common and distressing feature. It manifests itself usually as an infection of the mucous membrane or the muscle of the uterus, and is called endometritis or metritis. The continued presence of this infection brings about many troublesome consequences, the last link in the chain being here, as elsewhere in the body, cancer. It is the last chapter in the three-volume story of Chronic Intestinal Stasis. The bladder of the toxic woman is also very often infected by organisms. Fortunately, the extension of organisms from the bladder to the kidneys is not as frequent as one would expect, yet it is quite common enough to produce much disease of these organs. The urinary apparatus in the male is also affected, especially in early life.

The hair of the head falls out, either because of impaired nutrition of the cells or from the invasion of the roots by organisms. In the young subject, associated with this there is a new growth of a fine down over the cheeks, lip, chin, down the back and over the forearms, all of which conditions are very disfiguring and very distressing to the sufferer. These all disappear, more or less completely, with an improvement in the drainage.

The joints of toxic people, and especially of children, are very loose, and permit of considerable over-extension. We know that the fit or security of a joint varies directly with the development of the muscles which control it, and the feebleness of the poisoned muscles readily accounts for the insecurity of the joints. The skin is very liable to invasion by organisms, which form pustules, etc.

CONSTIPATION AND THE DISEASES OF WOMEN.

IN 1913 Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, the celebrated Surgeon, delivered at the Royal Society of Medicine, a lecture on “Alimentary Toxaemia” and I have no hesitation in saying that this was perhaps the most important lecture ever delivered within the walls of that Institution. A long, busy, and most successful professional life had convinced Sir Arbuthnot that many of the most serious diseases of mankind are diseases of civilisation, that they are due to the over-refined and constipating diet which is universal among the civilised, and that women are the greatest sufferers from the consequences of chronic constipation and self- poisoning because they suffer more seriously from constipation than men, partly because they have a larger abdomen than men and have therefore more room for bowel accumulations, partly because their greater modesty causes them to repress their urgings and to neglect the calls of nature.

At one time of his life Sir Arbuthnot considered the problem of constipation largely as a mechanical one, and he strove to relieve sufferers by mechanical means and he did veritable miracles. By means of operation on the bowel he restored to perfect health people who had been declared to be hopelessly insane, hopelessly incapacitated by rheumatoid arthritis, etc., having discovered that apparently incurable diseases were due to the malfunctioning of the bowel which could not be rectified by medicinal means.

W. Arbuthnot Lane
Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, Bt, CB, FRCS, Legion of Honour (4 July 1856 – 16 January 1943), was a British surgeon and physician. He mastered orthopaedic, abdominal, and ear, nose and throat surgery, while designing new surgical instruments toward maximal asepsis. He thus introduced the "no-touch technique", and some of his designed instruments remain in use.
Lane pioneered internal fixation of displaced fractures, procedures on cleft palate, and colon resection and colectomy to treat "Lane's disease"—now otherwise termed colonic inertia, which he identified in 1908—which surgeries were controversial but advanced abdominal surgery.
In the early 1920s, as an early advocate of dietary prevention of cancer, Lane met medical opposition, resigned from British Medical Association, and founded the New Health Society, the first organisation practising social medicine. Through newspapers and lectures, sometimes drawing large crowds, Lane promoted whole foods, fruits and vegetables, sunshine and exercise: his plan to foster health and longevity via three bowel movements daily.