FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 343:820-821 September 14, 2000 Number 11 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited

By James C. Whorton. 332 pp., illustrated. New York, Oxford University Press, 2000. $39.95. ISBN 0-19-513581-4.

The subject of this book concerns everyone in one way or another. When nature calls regularly, one should be grateful. But when such calls are irregular and one suffers from headache, distention of the abdomen, disagreeable breath, and furred tongue, then something has to be done. According to 18th-century doctors, retained bile would cause fever, in the 19th century putrefaction and bacterial infection were feared, and now we are frightened by autointoxication and cancer.

The belief that retained feces can poison the body has a long history. A passage in the Ebers papyrus suggests that undigested food produces poisonous substances . . . [Full Text of this Article]

HOME  |  SUBSCRIBE  |  SEARCH  |  CURRENT ISSUE  |  PAST ISSUES  |  COLLECTIONS  |  PRIVACY  |  HELP  |  beta.nejm.org Comments and questions? Please contact us. The New England Journal of Medicine is owned, published, and copyrighted © 2008 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.