Enema
[4] In standard medicine, the most frequent uses of enemas are to relieve constipation and for bowel cleansing before a medical examination or procedure;[5] also, they are employed as a lower gastrointestinal series (also called a barium enema),[6] to treat traveler's diarrhea,[7] as a vehicle for the administration of food, water or medicine, as a stimulant to the general system, as a local application and, more rarely, as a means of reducing body temperature,[1] as treatment for encopresis, and as a form of rehydration therapy (proctoclysis) in patients for whom intravenous therapy is not applicable.
[28] TAI, also termed retrograde irrigation, is designed to assist evacuation using a water enema[49] as a treatment for persons with bowel dysfunction, including fecal incontinence or constipation, especially obstructed defecation.
[52] While simple techniques might include a controlled diet and establishing a toilet routine,[52] a daily enema can be taken to empty the colon, thus preventing unwanted and uncontrolled bowel movements that day.
[53] In a lower gastrointestinal series an enema that may contain barium sulfate powder or a water-soluble contrast agent is used in the radiological imaging of the bowel.
[6] Failure to expel all of the barium may cause constipation or possible impaction[54] and a patient who has no bowel movement for more than two days or is unable to pass gas rectally should promptly inform a physician and may require an enema or laxative.
On the Ivory Coast the narrow neck of the gourd filled with water is inserted the patient's rectum and the contents are then injected by means of an attendant's forcible oral inflation, or, alternatively, a patient may self-administer the enema by using suction to create a negative pressure in the gourd, placing a finger at the opening, and then upon anal insertion, removing the finger to allow atmospheric pressure to effect the flow.
[78] The Olmec from their middle preclassic period (10th through 7th centuries BCE) through the Spanish Conquest used trance-inducing substances ceremonially, and these were ingested via, among other routes, enemas administered using jars.
Early Indian physicians' enema apparatus consisted of a tube of bamboo, ivory, or horn attached to the scrotum of a deer, goat, or ox.
[86] In Persia, Avicenna (980–1037 A. D.) is credited with the introduction of the "clyster-purse" or collapsible portion of an enema outfit made from ox skin or silk cloth and emptied by squeezing with the hands.
"[89] In the first century BCE the Greek physician Asclepiades of Bithynia wrote "Treatment consists merely of three elements: drink, food, and the enema".
[61] In medieval times appear the first illustrations of enema equipment in the Western world, a clyster syringe consisting of a tube attached to a pump action bulb made of a pig bladder.
[93] In 1694 François Mauriceau in his early-modern treatise, The Diseases of Women with Child, records that both midwives and man-midwives commonly administered clysters to labouring mothers just prior to their delivery.
][citation needed][95] In 1753 an enema bag prepared from a pig's or beef's bladder attached to a tube was described by Johann Jacob Woyts as an alternative to a syringe.
[97] Tobacco resuscitation kits consisting of a pair of bellows and a tube were provided by the Royal Humane Society of London and placed at various points along the Thames.
[93] Furthermore, these enemas came to be employed for headaches, respiratory failure, colds, hernias, abdominal cramps, typhoid fever, and cholera outbreaks.
As medical knowledge was fairly limited at the time, purgative clysters were used for a wide variety of ailments, the foremost of which were stomach aches and constipation.
Devices allowing gravity to infuse the solution, like those mentioned above used by South American indigenous people and like the enema bag described by Johann Jacob Woyts, came into common use.
These consist of a nozzle at the end of a hose which connects a reservoir, either a bucket or a rubber bag, which is filled with liquid and held or hung above the recipient.
[99] The term "colonic irrigation" is commonly used in gastroenterology to refer to the practice of introducing water through a colostomy or a surgically constructed conduit as a treatment for constipation.
His favorite device was an enema machine ("just like one I saw in Germany") that could run fifteen gallons of water through a person's bowel in a matter of seconds.
This has resulted, for example, in a six-year-old boy needing to have his colon removed and a colostomy bag fitted,[108][109] complaints to the FDA reporting life-threatening reactions,[110] and even death.
[112][113] Oral and rectal use of the solution has also been promoted as a cure for HIV, malaria, viral hepatitis, influenza, common colds, acne, cancer, Parkinson's, and much more.
Chlorine dioxide is a potent and toxic bleach[114] that is relabeled for "medicinal purposes" to a variety of brand names including, but not limited, to MMS, Miracle Mineral Supplement, and CD protocol.
[116] No clinical trials have been performed to test the health claims made for chlorine dioxide, which originate from former Scientologist Jim Humble[117] in his 2006 self-published book, The Miracle Mineral Solution of the 21st Century[118] and from anecdotal reports.
[133] Some proponents of alternative medicine have claimed that coffee enemas have an anti-cancer effect by "detoxifying" metabolic products of tumors[122] but there is no medical scientific evidence to support this.
[138] That some women use enemas while masturbating was documented by Alfred Kinsey in Sexual Behavior in the Human Female: "There were still other masturbatory techniques which were regularly or occasionally employed by some 11 percent of the females in the sample... Douches, streams of running water, vibrators, urethral insertions, enemas, other anal insertions, sado-masochistic activity, and still other methods were occasionally employed, but none of them in any appreciable number of cases.
[153] With historical roots in the Indian subcontinent, enemas in Ayurveda, called Basti or Vasti, form part of Panchakarma procedure in which herbal medicines are introduced rectally.
[163] In Molière's play The Imaginary Invalid, Argan, a severe hypochondriac, is addicted to enemas as indicated by such lines as when Bĕralde asks, "Can't you be one moment without a purge?
[169][170] Water Power is a Pornographic film by Gerard Damiano loosely based on the real-life exploits of Michael H. Kenyon, an American criminal who pleaded guilty to a decade-long series of armed robberies of female victims, some of which involved sexual assaults in which he would give them enemas.
A 365-kilogram (805-pound) brass statue of a syringe enema bulb held aloft by three cherubs stands in front of the "Mashuk" spa in the settlement of Zheleznovodsk in Russia.
