Intestinal Putrefaction (Auto-Infection).

Abstract

It seems remarkable that with all the teliologic acumen of our profession, one of the principal causes of disease has been hitherto almost entirely overlooked—that of intestinal putrefaction, so palpable that it could not have been concealed; and it is more than probable that the largest proportion of fatalities have heretofore resulted, directly or indirectly, from that single cause. The idea is a simple cognition apart from any technical qualification; in other words, we have only to see and believe; for if we observe the natural process of digestion, assimilation and elimination we can not fail to perceive the inevitable morbid influence that must necessarily follow in the wake of delayed defecation. As soon as the mass of chyme emerges from the stomach, the elements of which it is composed begin to change their relations, and as it gradually passes down through the alimentary canal the nutritive combinations are absorbed