The
Systematic Anti-autointoxication
Device, circa. 1895
Just two years
after the terrible failure of his Mammary Sympathizer (and
the ensuing court case) Flannigan was back in public favour with
his latest invention, The Systematic Anti-autointoxication
Device.
As a man in his later years, and with
the means to look after his health, Flannigan left London, Ontario
and made his way to Michigan. His desitnation was Dr. John Harvey
Kellogg's famous Battle Creek Sanitarium, known affectionately
to its public as "The San". Kellogg and Flannigan immediately
recognized in one another the spirit of genius, and by the end
of his second week there, Flannigan had agreed to collaborate
with Kellogg on a new medical device.
Kellogg, as history has shown, had
an obsession with the bowel. The man reveled in it. Ninety percent
of all illness, he would calmly explain, originated in the stomach
and bowel. Guests who arrived at Battle Creek soon learned that
their once-pristine bowel was now a sewer of autointoxication,
full of poisons like creatin, skatol and indol.
Residents at The San could expect
their colonic regions to be assaulted by water from above and
below, but after Flannigan's invention, autointoxication
irrigation got serious. The Systematic Anti-autointoxication
Device could put 15 to 30 gallons of water through an unsuspecting
bowel in a matter of seconds. (To put that thunderous flow in
perspective, the average Canadian toilet uses 3.5 gallons per
flush.)
The word "squishy" does
not even begin to describe it.
 |
| Dr. Kellogg, seen here with
his favourite bird, "Colon" |
But Kellogg was elated, even if the Intestinal
Wing of "The San" was awash in toxins and other less
sanitary matter. But Kellogg said the device lacked one thing
-- an attachment to dispense the yogurt that Kellogg felt had
curative powers. (This unit is seen to the right, next to the
bunsen burners often used to heat said foodstuff to a more comfortable
temperature. We are not sure of the precise purpose of the crank,
and frankly, don't want to know.) And yes, the yogurt was "dispensed"
in the same region as the water.
Flannigan enjoyed a summer of fame
as the inventor of the device, lauded by Kellogg at vegetarian
dinners all season. But they had a serious falling out, when Flannigan
told Kellogg of one of his earliest inventions, The Nautch.
As an absurdly strict celibate (Kellogg's wife could often be
found riding horses, bicycles and The San's head groundskeeper,
Big Villi (a Lithuanian immigrant)) Kellogg refused to be associated
with the inventor of such a salacious device, and had the Irish
inventor banished from The San.
Flannigan had his revenge though,
when he spiked Kellogg's personal yogurt supply with cayenne pepper
extract.
--"Scholarship" by The
Squire
