PILES. (Hemorrhoids)

Categories: Digestive Organs

Hemorrhoid is derived from two Greek words, meaning
blood and flowing with blood. "Pile" is from a Greek word meaning a ball

or globe. Hemorrhoids, or piles, are varicose tumors involving the veins,

capillaries of the mucous membranes and tissue directly underneath the

mucous membrane of the lower rectum, characterized by a tendency to bleed

and protrude. They were known in the time of Moses.



Varieties. There ar the external (covered by the skin) and the internal

(covered by mucous membrane).



Causes. Heredity. More frequent in males. Women sometimes suffer from

them during pregnancy. Usually occurs between the ages of twenty-five and

fifty. Sedentary life, irregular habits, high-grade wines and liquors, hot

and highly seasoned and stimulating foods. Heavy lifting. Those who must

remain on their feet long or sit on hard unventilated seats for several

hours at a time. Railway employees, because they take their meals any time

and cannot go to stool when Nature calls, causing constipation. Purgatives

and enemata used often and for a long time. Constipation is perhaps the

most frequent cause: when a movement of the bowels is put off for a

considerable time the feces accumulate and become hard and lumpy and

difficult to expel. If this hard mass is retained in the rectum, it

presses upon the blood vessels interfering with their circulation and by

bruising the vessels may induce an inflammation of the veins when the

hardened feces are expelled; straining is intense, the mass closes the

vessels above by pressure and forces the blood downward into the veins,

producing dilatation when the force is sufficient. One or more of the

small veins near the anus may rupture and cause a bloody (vascular) tumor

beneath the mucous membrane or skin.



External Piles. Two kinds, venous piles and skin or simple enlarged tags

of skin. Venous piles usually occur in robust persons. They come on

suddenly and are caused by the rupture of one or more small veins during

the expulsion of hardened feces. There may be one or more, and may be

located just at the union of the mucous membrane and the skin. Their size

is from a millet-seed to a cherry, livid or dark blue in color, and appear

like bullets or small shots under the skin. At first they cause a feeling

of swelling at the margin of the anus; but as the clot becomes larger and

harder, there is a feeling of the presence of a foreign body in the lower

part of the anal canal (or canal of the anus). The sphincter muscle

resents this and occasionally contracts, spasmodically at first, producing

a drawing feeling; later these contractions become longer and more

frequent, and there is intense suffering caused by the pile being

squeezed, and this suffering may be so great that sleep is impossible

without an opiate. Because of the straining, irritation of the rectum and

pain in the sphincter, the piles soon become highly inflamed and very

sensitive. The clot may be absorbed without any treatment. Occasionally it

becomes ulcerated from the irritation, infection takes place and an

abscess forms around the margin of the anus terminating in a fistula.