Published on April 1, 1999
Author Unknown
A Brief Word About Enema
By Josh Beaudoin
Although published for April Fools, enema was a common and very real practice in early Adventism. At the Battle Creek Sanitarium, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg prided himself on his medical procedures. One of the procedures which he highly promoted to patients, and which he practiced on himself multiple times a day, was enema. It involved inserting a tube into a person’s rectum and then pumping liquid into the lower bowel. Often this liquid was water, although many other liquids could be used, and a common one was yogurt. [1]
While Kellogg drastically overestimated the benefits of enema, it is generally not detrimental to a person’s health, and is still used today by some people to help relieve constipation and prepare for some medical procedures like colonoscope. [2]
Citations
1 Schwarcz, J. (2018, June 13). The enigmatic Dr. Kellogg. McGill Office for Science and Society. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/31OZrzD.
2 Watson, K. (2018, September 17). Enema administration. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/enema-administration#results.
