LET YOUR BOWELS ALONE!
Harding, T. Swann
Let Your Bowels Alone! By T. SWANN HARDING IN SPITE of the fact that their use is objectionable, because they cause the very disease they are supposed to cure, laxatives, purgatives, and...
...Bran-O-Lax tablets could not possibly have contained the heaping tablespoon of wheat-bran they were said to have in them...
...The bran and the yeast eaters exist in multitudes, trying to end their costive ills...
...Here the seeker after a purely vegetable drug got something else...
...The other holds that laxatives are harmless and can be used without danger...
...But he found that he could remove all cathartic agents from the mixture and, provided it appeared the same to his patients, it worked as well as ever...
...Furthermore patients with infectious diseases usually get along better without the customary colonic clean-out...
...Two misconceptions underlie the use of laxatives, according to the late Dr...
...All sorts of medical miracles were attributed to them and all sorts of cures, while others denounced them as most inimical to the human race and most toxic, yet all were vegetarian in source...
...Actually Serutan consisted at the time of rice polishings with an equal part of the epithelial tissue of that great panacea, psyllium seed...
...Healthagain, on the other hand, proved on analysis to be composed of epsom salt, jalap, senna, rhubarb, sugar, alcohol, and water...
...If you look into the Notices of Judgment issued by the Food and Drug Administration you will find that they fell as frequently upon the righteous vegetable laxatives as upon cathartics from mineral sources...
...It was neither a cure nor a remedy for constipation...
...WHEN we stop to think that our leading medical journal is on record to the effect that no such condition as intestinal toxemia or autointoxication exists, we wonder whether all the crazy people are in institutions...
...Germania Herb Tea turned out to be senna leaves in the main, themselves a pretty harsh purge, with a few other vegetable drugs thrown in...
...Actuallv though the gastro-intestinal tract is not a plumber's pipe into one end of which you stuff miscellaneous matter, whether digestible, irritating or not, in order to produce a ready flow out the other end...
...By T. SWANN HARDING IN SPITE of the fact that their use is objectionable, because they cause the very disease they are supposed to cure, laxatives, purgatives, and cathartics have an immense hold upon our people and are tremendously profitable to producers...
...Possibly no radio advertising slogan has been more kidded than the announcement that Serutan becomes Natures when spelled backwards...
...Taken as directed it was a mildly irritant bulk laxative, partaking of the virtues and the defects of yeast, bran, and agar-agar...
...Notice of Judgment 21,777 summarized the action in this case, insofar as the Candy Cathartic was concerned, while Notice 21,793 gave further information...
...It was insisted that this was misleading in that both Candy Cathartic Cascarets and Chocolate Flavored Cascarets also contained phenolphthalein as an active agent...
...He concluded that constipation was a disease of modern civilization produced by advertising...
...This they did in part by picturing a venerable monk taking the sacred bark from trees...
...ENDROLAX proved to contain a mixture of mucilaginous seeds including the inevitable psyllium, with agar-agar and caramel...
...When it comes to the idea that drugs from vegetable sources ,are somehow non-irritant and especially harmless, one wonders how people can be so un-observing...
...Yet evidence from controlled experiments indicates that bran is very irritating to about two-thirds of the colons exposed to it and that most Of its laxative action is produced by its own swollen bulk...
...They were recommended to be altogether excellent for cleansing the entire intestinal tract and sweetening the entire system, also as effective in habitual constipation...
...Essentially Cascarets was a lozenge containing, besides cascara, licorice, flavoring oils, and a medicinal dose of phenolphthalein...
...They just didn't weigh enough...
...Arthur J. Cramp...
...Castor oil is a powerful drug from a vegetable source, not to mention senna, digitalis, nicotine, and any number of others...
...A great many individuals, forgetful apparently of croton oil, one of the most drastic purges of all, feel that if they somehow get hold of an all-vegetable laxative they cannot possibly do themselves harm...
...Yeast has no special sovereign efficacy in constipation either...
...Let your bowels alone...
...The implication is quite obvious...
...Its therapeutic value was limited to whatever temporary relief such laxation can give to various conditions which afflict the long-suffering human race...
...23, 1945...
...The former contained the strong phenolphthalein and so did the latter...
...The Government was as little impressed by the claims of AppleLax as by those of Bran-O-Lax Tablets—the latter, of course, being free from harmful drugs...
...A British doctor told an interesting story in 1937 about his mental patients in an institution who actually became constipated and hypochondriacal unless they got their laxative white mixture regularly...
...The details require study of the Federal Trade Commission's Order 4332, issued Jan...
...Actually they are harmful habit-producing drugs, and even the finest and blandest of them, by making the content of the large bowel soft, diminish the necessity for muscular effort and this leads to atrophy, atony, and permanent constipation...
...Part of its indigestible residue broke down into volatile fatty acids in the body and these also directly irritate the lining of the intestinal walls, quite as do bulky fibers, resinous materials, harsh salines, powerful oils, and other agents to which human beings resort in insulting their gastrointestinal tracts...
...The Food and Drug Administration made a seizure of Cascarets in 1934 because the Sterling Products Inc., persisted in conveying the idea that its product contained only cascara sagrada as its main active ingredient...
...It is a matter of history that substances we now regard as foods or beverages began their careers as drugs, for instance chocolate, tea, coffee, and sugar...
...It is true that the original Cascarets did depend on cascara but now they were slipping over a phenol derivative...
...So persistent are these myths that even patients in mental hospitals demand their cathartics...
...Serutan was promoted in as indirect and disinterested a manner as possible, publications concerning it often appearing in the guise of being something else...
...One runs to the effect that a daily bowel movement is absolutely essential to health, which is simply a fallacy...
...No vegetable laxative remedies constipation, restores natural elimination, promotes normal, regular intestinal action, strengthens or stimulates the digestive or elimi-native muscles or organs...
...But let us turn to 2 more notable instances, Cas-carets and Serutan...
...Naturally if you irritate the intestinal walls while stuffing them with indigestible bulk you will produce bowel movements...
...Serutan, which started the passion of everybody to spell everything backwards and guess what it meant, is a more outstanding case...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 26
