You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (11 page)

The excrement taboo has also affected more serious examinations of history. Napoleon’s final defeat, the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, is studied by most students at some point, as it prevented Napoleon from making all of Europe France. Why did Napoleon lose? In a four-hundred-word analysis by the BBC, the failure is blamed on mistakes in communication, leadership, and judgment.
¹¹²
Curiously, the BBC fails to mention that Napoleon had to leave the battle at its height for several hours because he was stricken with severe diarrhea.
¹¹³

Perhaps Napoleon’s untimely bowel movements are irrelevant to understanding Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, but the following omission is more difficult to comprehend. The atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler have been a popular academic topic over the past fifty years. Studying Hitler is an integral part of American history classes, and the question “What drove Hitler to commit these acts?” is often asked. Theories range from repressed homosexuality to bitterness over being a failed artist.
¹¹⁴
Almost no one mentions that his atrocities could have stemmed from his severe gas problems.

When Hitler was first coming into power in the early 1930s he was already suffering from gastrointestinal pains. At that time he was taking a gun-cleaning oil called Balestol to alleviate the problem. During World War I soldiers sometimes would ingest Balestol in the trenches for upset stomachs, and under the name Neo-Balestol,
the oil was later sold specifically for that purpose. Balestol turned out to be poisonous, and after suffering a particularly bad reaction to it Hitler had it removed from the market.

Hitler’s uncontrollable farting continued to be problematic. After other doctors’ remedies failed, Hitler began treatment in 1936 with a quack physician, Dr. Theodor Morell. Morell initially had success and became Hitler’s primary physician, but over time Hitler’s problems grew even worse. One of Morell’s later notebook entries regarding Hitler read, “After eating a vegetable platter, constipation and colossal flatulence occurred on a scale I have seldom encountered before.”
¹¹⁵

For the rest of Hitler’s life, Morrell injected him with dubious concoctions so frequently that Morrell sometimes had trouble finding an unscarred vein to pierce. Between 1941 and 1945, Morell’s journals show that he treated Hitler with seventy-seven different medicines and preparations.
¹¹⁶
One particularly damaging treatment was Dr. Koester’s anti-gas pills. These pills contained strychnine and atropine, two deadly poisons. Hitler ingested high amounts of the pills for eight years, and they likely caused his irritability and dementia.

Is it rational that one of the great themes debated by students and scholars in the last half-century is devoid of the information that he was being continuously pumped full of poisonous concoctions, some of which are known to cause insanity?

1.
        Flatus (FLAY-tus) is the scientific word for fart.

2.
        Our digestive system is loaded with healthy bacteria. One drop of saliva can contain two million bacteria. One drop of colon content contains fifty million bacteria. These bacteria help digest our food, produce vitamins, and occupy niches that would otherwise be available for unhealthy bacteria. Without them we could not survive. Trudy Wassenaar, “Bacteria: More Than Pathogens,”
Actionbioscience.org
, July 2002, ret. 9 Aug. 2006.

3.
        Roger Luckenbach, “Fecal Matters,”
Coast Weekly
, July 1995.

4.
        Section largely from Coen van der Kroon,
Golden Fountain
(1996).

5.
        This should be qualified as fresh urine from a healthy animal.

6.
        Sylvia Branzei,
Grossology
(1995), p. 24.

7.
        A fetus’ urine is very similar to its mother’s urine.

8.
        “Classicist Digs Deep for Truth About Hygiene Habits of Ancient Romans,”
Brandeis University News
, 12 June 2000.

9.
        van der Kroon,
Golden Fountain
, p. 13.

10.
      Branzei,
Grossology
, pp. 62–63, and Jim Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
(1999), p. 10.

11.
      Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
, p. 11.

12.
      “How Dinosaurs May Have Helped Make Earth Warmer,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, 23 Oct. 1991.

13.
      H. Augenbraun, E. Matthews, and D. Sarma, “Global Methane Cycle,” Institute on Climate and Planets, Aug. 1997.

14.
      Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
, p. 65.

15.
      Abruzzi, “The Doubler,” 1998. Available free on the web.

16.
      Feces and defecation cannot be avoided by some groups, such as pet owners and farmers, making it less taboo with them.

17.
      The FCC has defined broadcast indecency as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.” “FCC Consumer Facts: Obscene and Indecent Broadcasts,”
FCC.Gov
, 24 Sep. 2007, ret. 1 Sep. 2008.

18.
      
Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union
, 521 US 844 (1997).

19.
      
Action for Children’s Television v. FCC
(ACT III), 11 F.3d 170 (DC Cir. 1993).

20.
      A chamber pot is a portable container used as a toilet.

21.
      Roughly ninety percent of the ancient Romans were commoners, that is, not of the wealthy patrician class.

22.
      Paul Spinrad,
RE/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids
(1994), p. 90.

23.
      Ibid., p. 89.

24.
      Jim Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
(1999), p. 8.

25.
      Spinrad,
RE/Search Guide
, p. 120.

26.
      Roman Emperor Theodosius criminalized all other religions and any disagreement with the Christian Church in 380 A.D.

27.
      Helen Ellerbe,
Dark Side of Christian History
(1995), p. 143.

28.
      Spinrad,
RE/Search Guides
, p. 111.

29.
      Norbert Elias,
History of Manners
(1982), p. 133.

30.
      Ibid., p. 131.

31.
      In the nineteenth century, women’s long voluminous hooped dresses allowed them to urinate discreetly in front of others. (Women did not wear underwear until bloomers were popularized at the start of the twentieth century.) Havelock Ellis,
My Life
(1939), pp. 84–87.

32.
      Julie Horan,
Porcelain God
(1996), pp. 31–32.

33.
      Elias,
History of Manners
, p. 132.

34.
      Paragraph from William Manchester,
World Lit Only by Fire
(1993), pp. 50, 52–53.

35.
      Spinrad,
RE/Search Guide
, p. 94.

36.
      Richard Zacks,
Underground Education
(1997), p. 136.

37.
      Jim Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
(1999), p. 1.

38.
      Philippe Aries and Georges Duby,
History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium
(1987), pp. 446–447.

39.
      Boisterous and malodorous flatus was abundant due to diets comprised almost solely of meat and bread.

40.
      Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
, p. 4.

41.
      Another explorer wrote of an Ashanti man who farted when bowing before his chief and was so ashamed that he hung himself within an hour. Cultures vary widely on flatus acceptance. The Yanomami of Venezuela use farts as a greeting.

42.
      Carol Midgley, “Our Gross Domestic Products,”
Times
, 28 Aug. 2002.

43.
      Horan,
Porcelain God
, p. 68.

44.
      Helen Ellerbe,
Dark Side of Christian History
(1995), p. 143.

45.
      Spinrad,
RE/Search Guide
, p. 112.

46.
      Ibid., pp. 112–113.

47.
      Norbert Elias,
History of Manners
(1982), p. 152.

48.
      Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
, p. 86.

49.
      An example of this social leveling can be seen in a table mannerism. Whereas eating used to commence when the person of highest rank, for instance the king, was ready, eating now commences when everyone is ready. Elias,
History of Manners
, pp. 137–139.

50.
      Spinrad,
RE/Search Guide
, p.113.

51.
      Rose George,
Big Necessity
(2008), p. 8.

52.
      Spinrad,
RE/Search Guide
, p. 85.

53.
      She refused to try it and banished him from court for his poor taste. Horan,
Porcelain God
, pp. 48–49.

54.
      Maureen Francis, “The ‘Flush Toilet’ a Tribute to Ingenuity,”
MasterPlumbers.com
, 19 Oct. 1999, ret. 12 Oct. 2010.

55.
      Alexander Kira,
Bathroom
(1966), pp. 10–11.

56.
      The office was an unsuccessful attempt by movie studios to prevent government censorship. Marjorie Heins,
Not in Front of the Children
(2001), p. 54.

57.
      Jim Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
(1999), p. 116.

58.
      Urjo Kareda, “Is There Any Future for Bad Taste?”
New York Times
, 18 Aug. 1974.

59.
      Dawson,
Who Cut the Cheese
, pp. 125–126.

60.
      Kira,
Bathroom
, pp. v–vi.

61.
      Ibid., pp. 119–138.

62.
      Dov Sikirov, “Comparison of Straining During Defecation,”
Dig. Dis. Sci
., July 2003, pp. 1201–1205.

63.
      Ibid.

64.
      Kira,
Bathroom
, pp. 120–121; and Berko Sikirov, “Primary Constipation,”
Med. Hypotheses
, Feb. 1989.

65.
      Frederick Hornibrook,
Culture of the Abdomen
(1933, orig. pub. 1924), pp. 77–78.

66.
      Berko Sikirov, “Management of Hemorrhoids,”
Isr. J. Med. Sci
., Apr. 1987.

67.
      Berko Sikirov, “Etiology and Pathogenesis of Diverticulosis Coli,”
Med. Hypotheses
, May 1988.

68.
      Berko Sikirov, “Cardio-Vascular Events at Defecation”
Med. Hypotheses
, July 1990.

69.
      For an overview see “Health Benefits” at
NaturesPlatform.com
, a site selling platforms that allow squatting on toilet bowls.

70.
      For example, high fiber intake was not found to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer. Yikyung Park, et al., “Dietary Fiber Intake and Risk of Colorectal Cancer,”
JAMA
, 14 Dec. 2005.

71.
      Sikirov, “Comparison of Straining,” p. 1205.

72.
      Kira,
Bathroom
, p. 141.

73.
      Ibid., p. 149.

74.
      The standing technique is not as natural for women as it is for men and their external hose. A web poll done by Denise Decker (see infra) found a success rate of seventy percent for women who tried to learn it.

75.
      Denise Decker (pseudonym) of Caring Hands, Inc. in Hayden, Idaho, hosted “A Woman’s Guide on How to Pee Standing Up” webpage and an active message board from 1997–2002 on
Restrooms.org
.

76.
      Ret.
Restrooms.org
, 3 Feb. 2006.

77.
      Ibid.

78.
      Women wait twice as long as men for public restrooms. Allison Janse and Charles Gerba,
Germ Freak’s Guide to Outwitting Colds and Flu
(2005), p. 97.

79.
      2001 survey by the toilet paper company Quilted Northern.

80.
      K.H. Moore, et al., “Crouching Over the Toilet Seat,”
BJOG
, June 1991.

81.
      David Williams, “Is Your Desk Making You Sick?”
CNN.com
, 13 Dec. 2004.

82.
      Toilets can send fecal matter soaring twenty feet in the air when flushed. This blast occurs not immediately upon flush, but right before all the water has left the bowl. Janse,
Germ Freak’s Guide
, p. 96.

83.
      Almost forty percent of women crouch even when using a friend’s toilet. Moore, “Crouching Over the Toilet Seat.”

84.
      Paul Spinrad,
RE/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids
(1994), p. 12.

85.
      2004 survey by the toilet paper company Quilted Northern.