The Weird and Wonderful History of Colonics

If you think colonics are some slightly bonkers modern wellness trend involving spas, green juice and people suddenly becoming very interested in their bowel movements, think again.

We humans have been obsessed with what is going on inside our bowels for thousands of years. And I mean thousands.

From Ancient Egyptian healers and Greek physicians to French kings, Victorian doctors and Princess Diana, the humble bowel has had quite the journey through medical history.

There is a famous quote attributed to Hippocrates: “All disease begins in the gut.”

Now, before the historians come after me with a large scroll, there isn't good evidence that Hippocrates actually said those exact words. What we do know is that Hippocrates used and recommended enemas as part of medicine, including for certain fevers and disorders. And the philosophy behind that famous quote certainly wasn't unusual in the ancient world. In fact, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote about the Egyptians regularly cleansing themselves because they believed illness originated from the food they ate. The idea that digestion, elimination and health were intrinsically connected is therefore very, very old. 

The Egyptians were doing it thousands of years ago

Ancient Egyptian medicine had an extraordinary fascination with the digestive system. The Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest surviving medical texts, dates to around 1550 BC and contains hundreds of remedies covering everything from intestinal disease and parasites to skin conditions and injuries. Egyptian medicine placed enormous importance on keeping the body's internal channels flowing freely. 

Colon cleansing and enemas appear in accounts of Egyptian medicine, with early devices described as using hollow reeds or similar tubes through which liquid could be introduced into the rectum. There is even a wonderfully bizarre story surrounding the ibis.The Egyptians supposedly observed the ibis inserting its long beak into its rear to cleanse itself and took inspiration from nature. Whether the bird was actually giving itself the world's first colonic is rather questionable, but the story became part of the folklore surrounding the origins of the enema.

What isn't folklore is the importance Egyptians placed upon bowel cleansing. Herodotus described Egyptians purging themselves on three consecutive days every month, using emetics and enemas in pursuit of health. 

So wellness retreats have clearly been around longer than we thought. They just had fewer fluffy robes.

Greeks, Romans…and a lot of enemas

The practice continued into Greek and Roman medicine. Hippocrates recorded the use of enemas, while later physicians including Celsus and Galen described their use for constipation and digestive complaints. By this point bowel cleansing wasn't some fringe alternative practice. It was simply part of medicine.

And that remained the case, in one form or another, for centuries. But then we get to one of my favourite periods in colonic history. The French royal court. And things get completely ridiculous.

The King who apparently had more than 2,000 enemas

Louis XIV — the Sun King — was famous for excess. Huge banquets, elaborate ceremonies, extraordinary clothes, enormous wigs and a royal court where almost every aspect of the King's daily life became a performance. His health was no exception.

Louis suffered from numerous medical problems throughout his life and was subjected to the standard treatments of the period: bleeding, purging…and enemas. Lots of enemas. (Hektoen International)

Historical accounts claim that Louis XIV received more than 2,000 enemas during his reign. TWO THOUSAND!

Apparently he occasionally continued conducting royal business while having one administered. Can you imagine?

"Your Majesty, the Spanish ambassador is here."

"Wonderful. Send him in. I'm just having my 1,843rd colonic."

Enemas became enormously fashionable among the French aristocracy. Some were reportedly scented and specially prepared, and beautifully decorated personal enema syringes became possessions of the wealthy.  Louis was also renowned for his enormous appetite. His meals could be spectacular affairs, and accounts of his later health describe how he eventually struggled to consume the huge meals to which he had become accustomed.  So perhaps there is a lesson there:

If you're going to eat like a king, apparently you also need to evacuate like one.

And then there's the old saying “blowing smoke up your arse”

This one sounds as though I have made it up. I haven't. During the 18th century, tobacco-smoke enemas were genuinely used as a resuscitation technique, particularly for people who had been pulled unconscious from the water. In London, the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned — which later became the Royal Humane Society — promoted attempts to revive drowning victims, and tobacco-smoke resuscitation equipment was among the methods used. (WLM Anesthesia Museum)

A tube was inserted into the rectum and tobacco smoke was blown into the bowel, sometimes using bellows. The thinking was that tobacco was a powerful stimulant and that the warmth and smoke might somehow shock or stimulate the person back to life.

Needless to say, please don't try this at home.

Modern medicine subsequently established that blowing tobacco smoke into someone's rectum does not constitute CPR. But this bizarre chapter of medical history is frequently connected with the expression: “Blowing smoke up your arse.”

The exact linguistic origin of the phrase isn't completely certain, so I wouldn't claim the medical treatment definitively created the saying — but the real practice behind the story absolutely existed.  There were even tobacco resuscitation kits positioned near waterways so drowning victims could be treated.

By Victorian times, everyone was obsessed with the bowel

By the 19th century the bowel had become central to a major medical theory known as autointoxication. The belief was essentially that waste remaining in the intestines could putrefy, produce toxins and ultimately poison the rest of the body.

And this wasn't originally considered fringe medicine. During the 19th century, autointoxication became an influential medical doctrine and bowel management, laxatives, purging and enemas were extremely common. Victorian doctors regularly carried enema equipment, and cleansing the bowel could be recommended for an extraordinary range of complaints. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries things became stranger still.

Doctors weren't only putting water into the bowel. They were putting food into it. Between the 1870s and early 20th century, physicians sometimes administered so-called nutritive enemas to seriously ill patients who couldn't eat normally. They were used on everyone from ordinary hospital patients to American presidents. 

So why did colon cleansing disappear?

During the early 20th century, scientific medicine began challenging the old theory of autointoxication. As our understanding of physiology, microbiology, infection and disease improved, the sweeping idea that retained bowel contents were responsible for huge numbers of illnesses lost credibility. Colon irrigation consequently declined within mainstream medicine. 

Then came another enormous shift.

Antibiotics.

Penicillin was discovered in 1928, and the antibiotic era exploded during the 1940s and 1950s. Suddenly medicine had extraordinarily powerful new ways of treating bacterial infections. The period from roughly the 1950s into the 1970s became a golden era of antibiotic discovery.  So rather than saying antibiotics caused colonics to disappear, it's more accurate to say they were part of a much larger transformation in medicine. Attention shifted towards pharmaceuticals, surgery, microbiology and increasingly sophisticated medical interventions, while many older bowel-cleansing practices fell from mainstream favour. And for several decades, colonics largely retreated into the world of natural health.

Until a rather famous woman started talking about them.

Enter Princess Diana

By the 1980s and 1990s, complementary therapies were becoming fashionable again. Acupuncture. Aromatherapy. Reflexology. Herbal medicine.....And colonics. Then Diana, Princess of Wales became associated with colonic irrigation. Contemporary reports claimed Diana had colonics regularly, alongside therapies including acupuncture, aromatherapy, reflexology and hypnotherapy. A 1994 report even quoted her as saying of colonics: “They take all the aggro out of me.” 

And when Diana did something in the 1990s, people noticed. Colon hydrotherapy suddenly had a glamorous new public face and began appearing again in conversations around complementary health and wellbeing.

So what are the benefits of a modern colonic?

After all that history, what does a colonic actually do? First of all, I think we need to get away from the idea that having a colonic is simply about having a really good poo! Colon hydrotherapy introduces warm, filtered water gently into the colon, encouraging the bowel to empty. For someone who feels constipated, sluggish, bloated or simply hasn't been evacuating comfortably, the most immediate benefit can be that wonderful feeling of having emptied the bowel.

And anyone who has ever been properly constipated will know just how much that can affect the way you feel. People commonly tell me after a treatment that they feel lighter, less bloated and more comfortable, and some find the whole experience surprisingly relaxing.

From my perspective, however, the treatment is also an opportunity to start a much bigger conversation.

• How often are you opening your bowels? 
• What does the stool look like?
• Are you drinking enough water?
• Are you eating enough fibre?
• Are you moving your body?
• Are you permanently stressed?
• Are you ignoring the urge to go?

Because your bowel habits can tell us an enormous amount about what's happening within your daily routine.

A colonic isn't a magic wand and I never see it as a replacement for nutrition, hydration, movement or appropriate medical investigation. Research into broader health benefits of routine colon hydrotherapy is still limited, so I don't believe we need to pretend that it cures everything in order to appreciate what the treatment can offer.

And then I have my herbal enemas…

This is where my approach becomes a little different. Depending on the individual, their consultation and whether it is appropriate for them, I may incorporate different preparations into my work. And yes, some of them sound rather unusual!

Organic Coffee

Probably the one that raises the most eyebrows. Coffee enemas have a long history within alternative and naturopathic approaches and are traditionally used with the intention of supporting elimination and what practitioners often describe as detoxification. Coffee contains caffeine and numerous plant compounds, and because it is being introduced rectally rather than drunk, this is a very different intervention from your morning flat white.

You'll hear some spectacular claims online about coffee enemas — particularly around liver detoxification and glutathione — but these haven't been established by good clinical research. Coffee enemas also aren't risk-free; cases of inflammation and injury to the colon have been reported.

So this is one where professional assessment, appropriate preparation and knowing when NOT to use something are every bit as important as knowing when to use it.

Wheatgrass

I love wheatgrass because it is absolutely packed with that incredible green pigment chlorophyll, alongside naturally occurring plant nutrients. Wheatgrass has become associated with cleansing and nutritional wellness, but interestingly there has also been some clinical research into rectal wheatgrass preparations. A small randomised controlled trial investigated wheatgrass juice enemas as an adjunctive treatment in active distal ulcerative colitis and reported improvement — although this was a very small study and certainly isn't enough evidence to recommend wheatgrass enemas as a treatment for bowel disease.

For me, it is another beautiful example of how plants and the bowel have crossed paths throughout the history of natural medicine.

My Parasite Blend – Black Walnut, Clove & Oregano

Now this is another fascinating area.

Black walnut, clove and oregano have a long history of use within herbal and traditional wellness practices, and you'll frequently see them combined in products marketed as parasite cleanses.

Oregano contains compounds such as carvacrol and thymol, while cloves are particularly rich in eugenol. Black walnut has likewise been used traditionally in herbal preparations.

I use this combination within my own therapeutic approach where appropriate, but there is an important distinction here:

Calling something a parasite cleanse doesn't mean that an enema containing these herbs has been clinically proven to eradicate a human parasitic infection. If someone genuinely suspects worms or another intestinal parasite, that needs proper investigation and, where necessary, appropriate antiparasitic treatment. I see herbs as part of a much wider conversation around the intestinal environment — never as a substitute for diagnosis.

Wild Yam

Wild yam is another herb with a fascinating history. It naturally contains diosgenin, a plant steroidal compound that became hugely important historically because scientists learned how to use compounds like it as raw materials in the laboratory manufacture of steroid hormones.

It's all about the individual

This, for me, is probably the most important part. Not every bottom needs the same treatment! And not every person should have a colonic or an herbal enema at all.

I don't believe wellness should ever be about throwing every fashionable treatment at somebody simply because it's available.

I want to know the person, their bowel habits, their hydration, their diet, their stress, their medication. their medical history, their lifestyle and what their body is actually telling me. There are circumstances where colon hydrotherapy or enemas may be inappropriate, particularly with certain gastrointestinal diseases, recent bowel surgery, significant rectal bleeding and some cardiovascular, kidney or other medical conditions. Herbal preparations can introduce their own contraindications, allergies and interactions too. That's why consultation and professional judgement matter.

After thousands of years of humans putting some frankly extraordinary things into the bowel — water, herbs, medicines, food and, unbelievably, tobacco smoke — we've hopefully learnt one very important lesson:

Just because something is natural doesn't mean we should stick it up our bottom.

There has to be a reason, there has to be respect for the physiology. And there has to be an understanding of the individual sitting — or perhaps lying! — in front of you. For me, modern colon hydrotherapy isn't about declaring the colon “dirty” or promising miraculous detoxification. It's about bowel function, elimination, hydration, awareness and reconnecting people with a part of their health that we still find ridiculously embarrassing to talk about. Because after doing this work for as long as I have, one thing I can tell you is this: Everybody poos. The interesting bit is what your poo is trying to tell you.

Which brings us back to the gut

What fascinates me most about this history isn't that every theory surrounding colon cleansing throughout the centuries was correct. It absolutely wasn't.

We've blown tobacco up people's bottoms, fed people through their rectums and had French aristocrats conducting meetings while having enemas. We've made some questionable choices. What fascinates me is that generation after generation kept returning to the digestive system when trying to understand health.

Ancient Egyptians looked towards the bowel, Greek physicians looked towards the bowel, Victorian medicine became almost obsessed with it.

And today we are once again intensely interested in the gastrointestinal system — only now we're talking about things such as the gut microbiome, microbial diversity, the gut-brain axis and the relationship between intestinal organisms and human physiology.

That doesn't mean every historical claim about colon cleansing has suddenly been proven correct. Modern evidence does not support the old idea that everyone needs their colon routinely “detoxified,” and colon hydrotherapy isn't appropriate for everybody.

But our ancestors were onto something important: The bowel deserves our attention.

For me, colon hydrotherapy isn't about declaring the bowel dirty or imagining that one treatment magically cures everything. It's about looking at the person as a whole. Hydration. Nutrition. Movement. Stress. The nervous system. Bowel habits. Lifestyle. Gut function. And, importantly, what the body is actually trying to tell us. After thousands of years of experimenting with the bowel — from Egyptian reeds to royal clysters and Princess Diana — perhaps the strangest thing isn't that we're still talking about gut health. It's that we ever stopped.

And whatever you take away from this little journey through the history of colonics, please remember one thing:

No tobacco smoke.

We've definitely moved on from that.