What Is Constipation?

The expression constipation is derived from the Latin word "constipatus," which translated means "to press or crowd together, to pack, to cram." Consequently, to be constipated means that the packed accumulation of feces in the bowel makes its evacuation difficult. However, a state of constipation can also exist when movements of the bowel may seem to be normal, in spite of an accumulation of feces somewhere along the line in the colon.

The fact of the matter is that constipation is the number one affliction underlying nearly every ailment; it can be imputed to be the initial, primary cause of nearly every disturbance of the human system. It is vital to stress that constipation affects the health of the colon, upon which the health of the body in its entirety depends.

The two biggest problems by far are first, the consumption of devitalized and refined foods which fail to nourish the organs responsible for the evacuation of waste matter. The other, is neglecting to stop everything we are doing when the urge to evacuate the bowels should drive us headlong into the bathroom.

How Constipation Effects the Colon's Function

The wall of the colon is equipped with sensitive nerves and muscles whose function it is to create wavelike motions, known as peristaltic waves, to propel the contents of the colon for evacuation. This is a distance of approximately five feet.

Besides the formation of these peristaltic waves, the first half of the colon has two very important functions. First, it must extract from all the residue coming from the small intestine any available nutritional material which the small intestine was unable to collect. For this purpose, it mulches the material which passes into it from the small intestine and absorbs the liquid and other elements through its walls into the blood stream. The nutrition which has thus been extracted from the colon is collected by the blood vessels lining the walls of the colon and is carried to the liver for processing.

If the feces in the colon have putrefied and fermented, any nutritional elements present in it would pass into the blood stream as polluted products. What would otherwise be nutritional becomes, in fact, the generation of toxemia. Toxemia is a condition in which the blood contains poisonous products which are produced by the growth of pathogenic, or disease-producing, bacteria. Pimples, for example, are usually the first indication that toxemia has found its way into the body.

The other important function of the first half of the colon is to gather from the glands in its walls the intestinal flora needed to lubricate the colon. When the packed accumulation of feces in the bowel leads to fecal incrustation, it is not possible for the lining of the colon to function normally and the glands in this lining cannot produce the necessary intestinal flora, or lubrication. Such lack of lubrication only serves to intensify a state of constipation and to generate toxemia.

This fecal incrustation interferes with, if it does not actually prevent, the infusion of the necessary intestinal flora for colon lubrication, the formation of peristaltic waves for evacuation purposes, and the absorption and use of the additional nutritional elements present in the waste residue coming into the colon from the small intestine.

Intensive research on this subject indicates more than ever that no treatment or healing procedure should ever be started without first giving the patient a series of colon irrigations in order to clean out the colon and remove the incipient source of infection.

There is no ailment, sickness or disease that will not respond to treatment quicker and more effectively than it will after the administration of a series of colon hydrotherapy treatments.