Edgar Cayce’s health advice frequently stressed the importance of assimilation and elimination. The stomach applies hydrochloric acid and enzymes to freshly-consumed food to prepare it for the next steps of digestion. The small intestine is the primary organ of assimilation, where the nutrients in food are absorbed into the bloodstream. Our large intestines do a little assimilation. The colon absorbs water and electrolytes to prepare what’s left for elimination.
A lot of people are constipated – where waste products don’t easily or regularly come out of their colon. Over the years humanity has figured out a bunch of substances that stimulate the last portion of the large intestine to release its contents. These are referred to as laxatives. Edgar Cayce commonly recommended many of the laxatives available before 1945: milk of magnesia, castor oil, the herb senna, epsom salts, etc. Frequently Cayce would tell constipated people to use a variety of laxatives on different days, then take a break.
While our large intestines are basically bacterial fermentation factories, our small intestines should have a relatively low presence of live bacteria. But sometimes bacterial growth gets out of control. White tongues generally indicate that the person has Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). Conventional medicine uses a ‘hydrogen breath test’ to look for hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide and methane in a person’s breath, as these are products of the types of bacteria that can become over-abundant in the upper portion of the digestive tract. Problematic bacteria create substances on their surface known as endotoxin, also known as lipopolysacharide. Sometimes I refer to endotoxin as ‘bacteria poop’.
The excess endotoxin caused by SIBO can be a factor behind rheumatism and fibromyalgia. Modern genetic testing links specific problematic bacteria to rheumatoid arthritis. Excess problematic bacteria create more endotoxin than the liver can handle, which overwhelms the liver’s ability to deactivate these poisons. When endotoxin gets into circulation it causes problems elsewhere in the body. The ARE mentions the role of intestinal bacteria in Overview of Fibromyalgia (EdgarCayce.org).
One of the interesting laxatives used by Cayce was a combination of salts and a powdered form of the element sulfur:- Rochelle salt (Potassium sodium tartrate tetrahydrate)
- Cream of tartar (Potassium bitartrate)
- Sulfur USP
