“The trouble with me, Doc” says the patient, “is gas?I’ve got nothing but gas! Everything I eat turns to gas. Look at me, my stomach is all swollen?gas. Hear that gurgling?that’s gas too! What I need is something for this awful gas.”
It almost would seem that no doctor ever truly learns the facts of life except from his patients! All his complex technical knowledge dwindles in importance when he comes face to face with the astounding intuition show by those who come to him with their complaints.
It is all so simple?to the patient. What does he care if the technical name is nervous indigestion or appendicitis or colitis? To him the important thing is the gas?and how to get rid of it. Ah! There’s the rub, as Shakespeare once said?and there is precisely where the diagnosis and treatment of intestinal troubles begins.
People in general tend to oversimplify all their health problems, sometimes in a way that is almost funny. Every pain in the head is a headache. Every pain in the abdomen is a stomach ache and every stomach ache is “stomach trouble.” Yet in that one area alone there might be dozens of ailments in no way related to the stomach.
Stomach trouble is a broad term?at least in the sense in which it is used by most people. To them it can mean almost any strange sensation in that vital area below the diaphragm. Anything from passing discomfort due to gas to the acute pain of appendicitis is at once suspected of being “stomach trouble.”
In truth, however, the source of disturbance lies far more often in the intestines than in the stomach. For example, duodenal ulcer and the seemingly endless varieties of colonic ailments are far more frequently the cause of symptoms. These intestinal troubles deserve to be known. This is especially true since many of them are capable of remedy by proper diet and such simple care as can be given by the person affected. Indeed, in my experience as a specialist in intestinal ailments, I have come to the conclusion that the correction of such maladies is chiefly dependent on one particular person?the patient himself.
While the oversimplification of health problems is comical, it is no less so than the fact that doctors give one particular ailment occuring in the abdomen literally dozens of names. Actually, this happens to be the case with reference to colitis, a condition far more common than the public and even the medical profession realizes. Indeed it is one of these ailment that is very often dismissed as being nothing but “gas”; yet it very often is the starting point of a long train of misery which in its most unfortunate turn ends in that in the dread spectre of mankind?cancer, itself!
To help those who are willing to be helped, the advice given in the pages to follow is offered as a step toward that proper understanding which is quite as necessary as actual medication.
The chief concern of the food canal is the efficient handling of food and its residues. Since this is self-evident, few will question my statement that proper diet is the keynote of successful care. Though each case differs in some details, every case needs a pattern of basic principles such as presented in this book. Those who suffer from intestinal troubles will find herein both understanding and helpful suggestions. The most encouraging thing for them to know is that there are but few problems of health that cannot be aided by enlightened self interest. Willingness to be cured is halfway to health!
The “facts of life” were the secrets naively that to be hidden from the preceding generation, but the “facts of living” are those most certainly denied the present generation. This is all the more lamentable when one recognizes the high voltage of modern world affairs. Truly the times are such that we are all rapidly being sorted into one of two heaps—the Quick and the Dead! Let us be quick to recognize the value of keeping the inner man on our side in the battle of life.
Unknown author from medical journals
