Re: Enema aspect

Hello Mighty.Sun.Tzu (Love your username btw.)

Yes, many people do disagree with me on the use of enemas during the water-fast and I respect their views, after all this is not a dictatorship, but an advice column based on personal experience and that of thousands of others.

My own view and my own experience (after completing two extended fasts) tallies exactly with that of the early and latter-day Natural Hygienists......except for Dr Tilden MD who employed the enema in his fasting patients, but later came to abandon the idea later in life as serving no useful purpose, except to drain the already weakened state of a patient even further.

Whether anyone continues to use the enema on a fast is entirely down to personal choice, but I felt compelled (as I have done before on this forum) to explain the reasons not to.

For example........
"Although a strong advocate of the use of the enema in the fast, Bernarr Macfadden (the father of physical culture) states: "enemas are somewhat enervating, and when the patient is already weak, he may find it a drain upon his vitality to take these."--Encyclopedia of Physical Culture, Vol. III, p. 1374.
It does not seem to me necessary to resort to enervating practices in our conduct of the fast and for more than twenty-five years I have refrained from the use of the enema. The enema is at all times a drain upon the patient's powers and its use during the fast not only weakens the patient and thus prolongs his illness, but it impairs his colon and he is often weeks and months getting over the effects. The employment of laxatives, as advocated and practiced by some, has the same weakening and debilitating effects upon the colon and they exert their irritating influence upon the stomach and small intestine, also"............

THE ENEMA DURING THE FAST...........
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.ch29.htm


"I am certain of another important matter, namely, that the frequent use of the enema during the fast, as at other times, impairs bowel function, so that after the fast is broken, bowel function is not as efficient as in those patients who have not had enemas. My good friend, Dr. Carlos Arguello, of Nicaragua, put this matter to a test by dividing his patients into two groups and giving one group enemas and the other no enemas during their fasts. After their fasts were broken he kept careful records of the bowel movements of the members of both groups. Those who received no enemas had nearly a third more movements in the same period of time following the breaking of their fasts.

The regular and frequent use of the enema induces several important evils in the colon and their use is not to be recommended at any period of life, certainly not when one is sick and weak and needs to conserve himself in every way possible. At the beginning of 1925 I ceased using the enema and I am much better satisfied with its non-use in the fast than with its use. My patients also escape the discomforts it induces".
BOWEL ACTION DURING FASTING...........
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.ch13.htm


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Therefore, we can safely assume that what is not a good practice for the sick and already enervated, is also not a good practice for the relatively well, as is the case of most Water-Fasting-Support-Members..
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"Bowel action is necessarily more or less absent during a fast. There may be two or three actions during the course of a comparatively short fast, or no action at all during a most prolonged fast. The use of the enema during the fast, so much advocated in many quarters, is both unnecessary and pernicious. How unnecessary it is will be shown by the following cases"
Refer to the fourth Chapter down................
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.ch13.htm


We should also bear in mind that this is the experience of people who conducted tens of thousands of fasts, and includes such eminent Doctors as Dr Charles E Page MD, and where the consensus of opinion and experience with the enema was not favorable to the patient whether sick or well.

Regards

Chrisb1.