Bowel

“ As the veins of the lining of the bowel become dilated they form definite bulgings within the bowel, and, at last increasing in size, escape through the anus when a motion is being passed. Growing still larger, they may come down spontaneously when the individual is standing or walking, and they are apt to be a grave source of pain or annoyance. Eventually they may remain constantly protruded—nevertheless, they are still internal piles because they arise from the interior of the bowel. Though a pile is sometimes solitary, there are usually several of them. ”

“ In examining a body diseased it is possible to locate by palpation, or feeling with the hand, the lower bowel throughout its extent, by using a copious enema after the intestine has been flushed of its contents. ”

“ Too tight external sphincter (rectum) muscle, stricture, tumors, etc. Bending of the womb on the bowel.
Defective Worm-like Bowel Movement.—Irregular habits of living head the list causing this defective action. Everyone should promptly attend to Nature's call. Some people wait until the desire for stool has all gone, and in that way the "habit" of the bowels is gradually lost. Everyone should go to stool at a certain regular time each day, and at any other time when Nature calls. ”

“ See Illust. of Digestive apparatus.
2. pl. The bowels; entrails; viscera.
Large intestine (Human Anat. & Med.) , the lower portion of the bowel, terminating at the anus. It is adapted for the retention of fecal matter, being shorter, broader, and less convoluted than the small intestine; it consists of three parts, the cæcum, colon, and rectum. -- Small intestine (Human Anat. & Med.) , the upper portion of the bowel, in which the process of digestion is practically completed. It is narrow and contorted, and consists of three parts, the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. ”

“ When internal piles have increased to any considerable extent, or have become inflamed, they produce not only itching at the extremity of the bowel, pain in the back, etc., but also a sensation of fullness in the rectum, as though some foreign body were present, and, on action of the bowels, there is a sensation as though a portion of the fæces had not been expelled. When the internal piles become large, they frequently come down with fæcal matter from the bowel, as illustrated in Fig. ”

“ The mucous membrane of the stomach and bowel, less able to withstand the effects of irritation, even of a minor character, readily passes into a condition of chronic catarrh, while it frequently is the seat of small abrasions, haemorrhagic erosions, which may cause vomiting of blood and the appearance of blood in the stools. ”

“ The small calibre of the bullet is alone responsible for the favourable results observed.
7. The danger or otherwise of an intestinal injury depends mainly on mechanical conditions; for instance, the fixity of the ascending colon, and its comparative freedom from a covering of small intestine capable by movement of diffusing any infective material, account chiefly for such favourable results as are seen when that segment of the bowel is implicated. ”

“ See Mange.
Jaundice:
Symptoms: Generally the result of congestion of the liver, caused by chill; may be due to impaction of the duct with a bile stone, or [164] worms; or the opening of the duct into the bowel may be stopped by thickening of the bowel membrane. The attack generally commences with sickness, dullness, loss of appetite; and the membranes of the mouth and eyes turn yellow, and so does the skin. There is generally obstinate constipation, and what is passed from bowel is usually grey or slate colour. The urine is scanty and high-coloured. ”

“ These coils of the food tube, we call the bowels.
Winding all around the stomach and bowels are tiny branching pipes full of blood. They look somewhat like the creepers on ivy, or the tendrils on grapevines. ”

“ The lack of a sufficiently vigorous flow of blood is followed by deficient secretion of digestive agents from the glandular elements involved, by decreased motility of the muscular coats of the stomach and bowel, and lessened adaptability throughout for dealing with even slight irregular demands on their powers. ”

“ If this is not attended to, and several days, perhaps a week, pass by without the bowels being relieved at all, pain in the head, a foul tongue, and an increased degree of fulness and tension of the abdomen, are experienced. These symptoms are followed, in all probability, by thin watery evacuations, attended with pain, weight, and pressure about the lower bowel; they become frequent; and the female at last, finding that the bowels are not only open again, but even loose, takes chalk mixture. ”

“ In nearly all emaciated cases it will be found that the patient is suffering from premature fermentation, intestinal and stomach gas, and a congested condition of the bowels commonly known as constipation. ”

“ The bowels, which in many were debilitated by hunger and bad food, were precisely the parts which in most cases were attacked with excruciating pain, and the tympanitic state of the intestines, points out to the intelligent physician, an origin of the disorder which is well worth consideration. ”

“ All kinds of foodstuffs, at all hours, with seeds, stones, etc., are poked into its stomach, followed by constipating remedies to quiet inevitable troubles, or brisk purgatives given with the hope of expelling the arrested contents of the bowels. Is it any wonder that ninety-eight persons of adult age out of every hundred suffer more or less from chronic inflammation and ulceration of anus, rectum, sigmoid flexure, colon, or appendix? ”

“ The bowels move very frequently, often with little or nothing to pass. There may be pain with each movement. The blood may disappear in a few days, but the mucus remains, often in large quantity in each stool. ”

“ If too large a quantity of food is given at each meal, or the meals are too frequently repeated, in both instances the stomach will become oppressed, wearied, and deranged; part of the food, perhaps, thrown up by vomiting, whilst the remainder, not having undergone the digestive process, will pass on into the bowels, irritate its delicate lining membrane, and produce flatulence, with griping, purging, and perhaps convulsions. ”

“ The author, during an experience of over twenty-three years as a specialist in diseases of the bowels, rectum, and anus, has found the true cause, namely, Proctitis; that is, the chronic inflammation (dating often from infancy and childhood) of the anus, rectum, and frequently of a portion of the sigmoid flexure and colon. Proctitis is practically the universal cause of chronic con­sti­pa­tion. ”

“ Can any one that suffers from proctitis, etc., have a natural stool? Unnatural conditions require preternatural aids, as we all know. The injected water dilates the constricted portion of the gut and arouses a revulsive impulse to expel the invading water. In obeying this impulse, the imprisoned feces, gases, etc., are ejected with the water.
It may be unnatural to put water into the rectum, etc., but once there its expulsion from healthy bowels would be quite natural. No natural action can be expected from unhealthy bowels; they do the best they can under the circum­stances. ”

“ If habitually relied upon to secure a movement of the bowels for a long time, the bowels lose their activity, and the most obstinate constipation sometimes results, precisely as from the prolonged use of purgatives. ”

“ It is, probably, speaking within bounds, to say that nine tenths of the adults, and nearly as large a proportion of youth in civic life, are more or less afflicted with obstructions and disturbances in the stomach and bowels, and other organs of the abdomen, the symptoms of which are either habitual costiveness or diarrhœa, or an alternation of both ”

“ INTESTINES, in anatomy, are those hollow membranous tubes of the human body, commonly termed the guts or bowels, which extend from the right orifice of the stomach to the anus. They are six times longer than the whole body, and by Nature destined to receive the chyme, or the aliment, so called after it is converted into a kind of pulp, which they retain for a time ”

“ The larger children complain of pains in the bowels, especially in the region of the stomach, [39] which remarkably often, though not regularly, become more intense by pressing and may become so violent that the children cry out aloud with pain, when the stomach or other portion of the abdomen is but slightly touched. ”

“ But when food contains no irritating substances and is easily assimilated without forming residues, or when the innervation by the vagus is sluggish and the peristaltic movements are slow, the contents of the intestines can remain longer, especially in the haustra of the intestines. It may be that the bowels move every day, but that does not prove that everything in the intestines has been expelled therefrom, for some amount of fæces can yet remain in the haustra of the intestine even for many days ”

“ Symptoms. These are well defined. It is characterized in its earlier stages by pain in the stomach and bowels, especially in the umbilical region, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea; later, the purging is excessive, and the matter dejected resembles rice-water, and contains white, solid, curd-like matter. The patient loses strength, and sinks rapidly. The secretory organs fail to perform their functions normally, the skin is sometimes moist, but oftener cold and dry; but little if any bile is found in the excretions, and the urine voided is very scanty. ”

“ If the movement is sufficiently large, one stool daily is sufficient, but where the stool is slight in quantity, there may be two or three during the day, entirely consistent with health, and in a run down state of the system there are apt to be several small movements rather than one full stool. So long as the stools are not watery, the individual may rest assured that there is no looseness of the bowels. ”

“ INTESTINAL COLIC. (Enteralgia) .—Causes.—Predisposing; poor general condition, worry, over-work, nervous disposition. Exciting causes; exposure, gas in the bowels, mass of feces, undigested or irritating food, cold drinks, green fruit, ice cream when a person is very warm.
Symptoms.—Intermittent pain usually in the umbilical (navel) region, moving from place to place, dull or sharp pain, relieved by pressure or bending forward. Abdomen is distended or drawn back. It lasts a few minutes or many hours, ending gradually or suddenly, after a passage of gas or movement of the bowels. ”

“ Complaints having their seat in the abdominal organs, and especially in the biliary apparatus.—The signs or indications of these are—acidities—eructations—furred tongue—troubled digestion—loss of appetite—sense of tightness or oppression about the stomach and bowels, after food—costiveness, or relaxed bowels—congestion about the liver, with or without enlargement of that organ—hypochondriasis and hysteria—hæmorrhoids and their consequences—irritations about the kidneys and bladder—sequences of residence in tropical climates. ”

“ Medicines
. Aconitum napellus, especially when the abdomen is tender to the touch, and the patient is feverish; Belladonna for severe griping and spasmodic pains; Bryonia for bilious colic and diarrhœa; Chamomilla for children.
940. Constipation
Women are more subject than men to this confined state of the bowels, which will, in many cases yield to exercise, plain nutritious diet, with vegetables and cooked fruit, and but little bread, and an enema of milk and water, or thin gruel if it is some time since there has been any action of the bowels. ”

“ While the war between the healthy and the diseased sections of the bowels goes on, the victim naturally concludes that there is no occasion or demand for defecation, and he attends to other affairs, ignorant of the fact that he is thus making a fatal mistake. ”

“ They weaken the digestion, by pushing down the stomach and the liver, and by compressing the latter, and thus induce indigestion, flatulence, and liver-disease. [Footnote: Several years ago, while prosecuting my anatomical studies in London University College Dissecting rooms, on opening a young women, I discovered an immense indentation of the liver large enough to admit a rolling pin, produced by tight lacing!] (5) They weaken the bowels, by impeding their proper peristaltic (spiral) motion, and thus might produce either constipation or a rupture. ”

“ A movement of the bowels each day is no proof of a clean and healthy alimentary canal. Sufferers from digestive troubles often assume that, because the bowels are regular in action, the evacuations are complete and sufficient, forgetful of the fact that, in most instances, but the rectum alone is relieved of its contents. ”

“ A very common mistake with the laity, and often enough made by physicians in diagnosing this complaint, is that of considering a comfortable daily movement conclusive proof that the bowels are not constipated. Few people have tongues that are entirely clean, and a coating there indicates, unmistakably, a worse one of the stomach and intestines. ”

“ These waters act by exciting the stomach, bowels, [215] kidneys, liver, and abdominal organs generally, augmenting the secretions and excretions—especially those of the intestines, sometimes it is said even to purgation, when they are taken in considerable quantity. This effect, however, must be rather unfrequent, for I found no one, including myself, who experienced it. “They excite the circulation, so as frequently to produce palpitation of the heart, and determination of blood to the head. ”