Mai unusual hystorykle knowingz, i show u them
It is not, I would suggest, everybody who can go 'Whoah, blooper!' to an article alluding to the history of colonic irrigation:
Colonic irrigation had been used in the 19th century in hospitals, with some doctors believing that a build-up of toxic undigested waste caused disease (it is thought colon cleansing dates back to ancient Greece and Egypt). But in the early 20th century, because these claims hadn't been proven, the practice fell out of favour. Until the 1990s, that is, when alternative health spas started offering it.
I have *documentary proof* that it was on the menu (as it were) at health spas and hydropathic establishments in the 1930s.
(After all, the whole constipation panic mindset continued very much alive during that period.)
I also recall (cos I iz a living rkyve) small ads in the Sunday papers, c. 1970, offering high colonic irrigation. Which was fairly mysterious to me until I read a novel in which this practice featured.
It was around. Perhaps it was less fashionable and more of a niche practice, but it was around, rather than being suddenly rediscovered c. 1990.
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