Dr. Spock

Dr. Spock was a strong advocate for giving kids enemas for almost any type of ailment. Thats why all the boomers are enema lovers.

Not necessarily from Dr. Spock. My mom learned it from her parents, and they got it from their parents, and so one down the line. Dr. Spock may have had some influence with me getting enemas, but enemas can be traced back in time to the B.C. era.

My mother had a copy of Dr. Spock's "Baby and Child Care" and when I sneaked a look through it at about 9 years old I saw that it advocated using enemas, glycerine suppositories and soap sticks to relieve constipation. My mother certainly used all three on me and that may be where she learned it, although my grandmothers and our family doctor also recommended their use for constipation and during illness.

Good that the advice was from Dr. Spock and not Mr. Spock!

Live Long And Prosper

Dr. Spock was my first erotic literature at about age 9 which was about 1950. I believe that the later editions dropped the use of enemas and suppositories that I loved to read about. After that it was on to the "women's health " articles in Ladies Home Journal.

I came across a late 1940s-59s edition of his book in which he approved of enemas but stressed that they should be given only with a doctor's permission. But it seems many moms, mine included., gave the treatment whenever they thought one was needed and knew the family MD would approve.

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With all due respect, I simply must agree with Curlyt66 and disagree with cteman. Here's why.

In the softcover version of Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock, M.D. (New York: Pocket Books, Giant Cardinal Imprint, 144th printing, January 1965), we find the following:

"If she [mother] becomes cross and tries to get his [her son's] movement out with an enema or a suppository . . . he may hold back anxiously (italicized) the next time . . . ." (Baby and Child Care 247.) Quite right.

"The very occasional enema or suppository the doctor may prescribe is not harmful in a child who has no training problem. But during a training struggle, when a child has been hanging onto his movement for dear life, if his mother in desperation resorts to an enema or suppository to get it out, he is apt to fight in rage and terror . . . ." (Id. 255-56.) Sadly, absolutely correct.

Dr. Spock also counselled against regular use of enemas or suppositories for constipation (or for toilet-training), describing it as "particularly important" that mothers not engage in such "unwholesome" treatments. (Id. 447.) Thank you, Dr. Spock.

As I wrote back on February 27, 2013, I hope the foregoing proves elucidative, responsive, and helpful. I loved Dr. Spock, and so I thought it appropriate to make fair use of his writings with a few apt quotations. Best wishes to all.

What gets me about Dr. Spock, is that he advocated enemas for years.......yet he's said colon hydrotherapy is a "quack remedy" that is popular solely because people get some sort of sexual gratification from it. Doesn't make much sense, but neither does Dr. Oz.....who contradicts himself more than Barack Obama.

I've never seen any editions of Dr Spock that enthusiastically advocated anal treatments. I used to have a 1970s one which gave detailed accounts of administering suppositories and enemas to children, but which argued that all this should only be done with a doctor's permission. He blotted his copybook by dismissing the need for daily bowel evacuation, saying "now fortunately we've outgrown that obsession".

We used to have his book in our house. Every chance I got I would turn to the enema/suppository section.

Dr. Spock was my pediatric advisor/mentor for my first two years of medical school. As a student, we would see our assigned family in clinic with his oversight. He was boisterous, somewhat loud, but very kind to all. I never heard him say much, if anything, about enemas, but then my memory could be faulty.

Some of his later books said not to take rt's or give enemas too frequently, because it would keep a child "focused on his anus and bowels." This admonishment was right before the detailed descriptions on how to administer both in his baby and child care book for mothers.

My grandparents still had many of their old books. I read that part a lot.

My mom had a copy of Dr. Spock and as a young boy I used to go to the enema section a lot. I used to read it over and over.