Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

by Mary Roach

in the 1600s. The Church sought an answer to the nagging question “Does rectal consumption of beef broth break one’s Lenten fast?” This was a subject of some controversy within the Church. Pharmacists of the day were turning a brisk business administering bouillon enemas to nuns and other pious, peckish Catholics who found that this helped them make it to lunch. The Vatican rules on fasting define food as “something digestible, received from outside into the mouth and passed by swallowing into the stomach.” By this definition, an enema does not technically break one’s fast.* Enema madness in the convents was forcing the Vatican to reconsider. An experiment was proposed whereby volunteers would be fed strictly by rectum. If they survived, the enema would have to be considered food and therefore banned. If they didn’t, the definition would remain as is, and some vigorous penance would be in order. In the end, nobody volunteered and the nuns continued, wrote Italian medical historian A. Rabino, to “welcome the clysters in their cells with tranquil conscience.”