Clister

Use in the book

The merchant returning from the Nördlingen fair is a case of competing explanations. He believes that all his money has been stolen; his friends suspect a love potion. Cnelinus instead attributes the disturbance to ten days without a stool and gives a clister, after which the reported recovery is rapid. The account does not verify the robbery, the potion or a modern diagnosis. In the regimen discussion, clisters are among aids used where nature fails to evacuate ordinary waste; Calenus adds use as occasion serves, and Mercurialis conditions his proposal on relief not occurring of itself.

The pharmaceutical classification places clysters among remedies administered through the lower parts, explicitly distinguishes suppositories, and allows strong or weak enemas. The preceding warning about ignorant readers experimenting on themselves belongs to this setting. Sequence also varies: Bruel’s particular clister is given before bloodletting, although the paragraph opens by moving from bleeding to further medicines.

The intended effect is not always simply evacuation. Under averters, clysters and suppositories draw humour away from the brain and heart to less noble parts. Burton then adds that some clysters nourish, depending on their preparation, citing what he learned in a lecture by the university Reader named in the margin as Master D. Lapworth. For hypochondriacal melancholy, Hercules de Saxonia claims many cures by clysters alone; the claim remains his testimony.

A clyster pipe receives a different employment in Amatus Lusitanus’s “strange remedy” involving bellows and the attempted withdrawal of wind. Burton subsequently says Amatus boasts of inventing it and quickly relieving a patient. Neither this mechanism nor the earlier curative and nourishing claims are present-day medical instructions.

Related entries

Purging

Evacuation and retention

Phlebotomy

Apophlegmatisms

Places to read

1. Subsection 4 Retention and Evacuation as Causes, and How They Act · paragraphs 5–8The merchant, constipation, rival explanations and the reported enema cure.
2. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraphs 26–31Aid to natural evacuation, with conditions of need and occasion.
3. Subsection 3 Compound Purgatives · paragraphs 43–46Warning against self-treatment and the distinction of lower-route preparations.
4. Subsection 3 Preparatives and Purgatives · paragraphs 30–32Bruel’s pre-bleeding sequence.
5. Subsection 4 Remedies That Divert the Humours · paragraphs 1–4Diversion and the qualified nourishing effect.
6. Member 3. Subsection 1 Treatment of Hypochondriacal Melancholy · paragraphs 39–41The attributed claim of cures by enemas alone.
7. Subsection 2 Corrective Medicines to Expel Wind. Against Constipation, and So On · paragraphs 53–58The repurposed enema pipe, claim of invention and concluding constipation remedies.

In this edition

“Clister” becomes “enema”, “clisters” becomes “enemas”, and “Clysters” likewise becomes “enemas”. One modern word covers the spelling variants without erasing the distinction from suppositories or the strong/weak contrast. “sometimes Clysters nourish, as they may be prepared” becomes “sometimes enemas provide nourishment, depending on how they are prepared”; the qualifying words are as important as the claim. The supplied original says “open the bowels,” although the mechanism suggests bellows; the edition preserves the printed word rather than silently correcting it.

clister · Clister · local use 1

Printed “Clister” (English; lemma).

An enema, a preparation administered through the lower bowel.

Here: Cnelinus gives the remedy to a merchant whose belief that he was robbed is attributed to constipation.

Context: The rapid recovery is a transmitted case report; the friends’ suspicion of a love potion is distinct from the physician’s diagnosis.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: gave him a Clister

Modern rendering: gave him an enema

Word and construction: Clister contributes enema; the recipient and act of administration remain the same.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

clister · clisters

Printed “clisters” (English; lemma).

An enema, a preparation administered through the lower bowel.

Here: One aid supplied where natural bowel evacuation fails.

Context: The historical recommendation supplements nature; it is not an assertion that every patient requires the procedure.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: turpentine, clisters

Modern rendering: turpentine and enemas

Word and construction: Clisters contributes enemas; turpentine remains a separate listed aid.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

clister · Clister · local use 2

Printed “Clister” (English; lemma).

An enema, a preparation administered through the lower bowel.

Here: Bruel’s enema precedes bloodletting, despite the paragraph’s initial movement from bleeding to other medicines.

Context: Bruel’s sequence is one attributed order among differing procedures, not the uniform order of every authority.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: begin first with a Clister of his, which he prescribes before blood-letting

Modern rendering: begin with an enema of his own, which he prescribes before bloodletting

Word and construction: Clister contributes enema; of his attributes the particular preparation to Bruel.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

clyster · Clysters · local use 1

Printed “Clysters” (English; lemma).

An enema, a preparation administered through the lower bowel.

Here: The pharmaceutical classification distinguishes enemas from suppositories and retains strong and weak forms.

Context: Burton lists routes and preparations for use on differing occasions, after warning against uninformed self-treatment.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Clysters strong or weak

Modern rendering: enemas, strong or weak

Word and construction: The spelling variant becomes enemas, and the contrast of strength remains attached to it.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

clyster · Clysters · local use 2

Printed “Clysters” (English; lemma).

An enema, a preparation administered through the lower bowel.

Here: The procedure is assigned a diverting as well as evacuating role, drawing humour away from brain and heart.

Context: Burton’s averters operate within the historical hierarchy of noble and less noble bodily parts.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: Clysters and Suppositories challenge a chief place

Modern rendering: enemas and suppositories claim a leading place

Word and construction: Clysters contributes enemas, separately from suppositories; the metaphor of rank is preserved.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

clyster · Clysters · local use 3

Printed “Clysters” (English; lemma).

An enema, here a preparation said to provide nourishment.

Here: Not every clyster is represented as merely draining: some preparations are alleged to nourish.

Context: Burton learned the claim from a lecture by the Reader in natural philosophy; sometimes and depending on preparation qualify it.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: sometimes Clysters nourish, as they may be prepared

Modern rendering: sometimes enemas provide nourishment, depending on how they are prepared

Word and construction: The noun remains enemas; nourish supplies the exceptional attributed effect under its stated conditions.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

clyster · Clysters · local use 4

Printed “Clysters” (English; lemma).

An enema, a preparation administered through the lower bowel.

Here: Hercules de Saxonia reports patients cured by enemas alone.

Context: The sole-treatment claim is his claimed experience with many hypochondriacal patients, not every melancholic person.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: many hypocondriacall melancholy men have been cured by the sole use of Clysters

Modern rendering: many people with hypochondriacal melancholy have been cured by enemas alone

Word and construction: Clysters contributes enemas; many, the specified kind, and alone delimit the report.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.

clyster pipe

Printed “Clyster pipe” (English; phrase).

A tube used for administering an enema.

Here: The instrument is reused in Amatus’s unusual proposed means of extracting wind with bellows.

Context: Burton calls the remedy strange and next reports Amatus’s boast of invention and rapid relief; this is not independent verification.

Source: original body

Source wording and original alignment: a Clyster pipe

Modern rendering: an enema pipe

Word and construction: Clyster modifies pipe by its ordinary therapeutic use; the passage reassigns the tube to the claimed extraction device.

Alignment conventions: Alignment convention.