If things go as they should, the bacteria hysteria so lucratively nurtured by the likes of Purell and Lysol will begin to subside. Thanks to the courageous blender-wielding pioneers of bacterial transplantation, fussiness and unfounded fear will be buffered by rational thinking and perhaps even a modicum of gratitude.
A tip of the toilet hat to you, Alexander Khoruts.
THE GREAT IRONY is that in the beginning, the gut was all there was. “We’re basically a highly evolved earthworm surrounding the intestinal tract,” Khoruts commented as we drove away from his clinic the last day I was there. Eventually, the food processor had to have a brain attached to help it look for food, and limbs to reach that food. That increased its size, so it needed a circulatory system to distribute the fuel that powered the limbs. And so on. Even now, the digestive tract has its own immune system and its own primitive brain, the so-called enteric nervous system. I recalled what Ton van Vliet had said at one point in our conversation: “People are surprised to learn: They are a big pipe with a little bit around it.”
You are what you eat, but more than that, you are how you eat. Be thankful you’re not a sea anemone, disgorging lunch through the same hole that dinner goes in. Be glad you’re not a grazer or a cud chewer, spending your life stoking the furnace. Be thankful for digestive juices and enzymes, for villi, for fire and cooking, all the miracles that have made us what we are. Khoruts gave the example of the gorilla, a fellow ape held back by the energy demands of a less streamlined gut. Like the cow, the gorilla lives by fermenting vast quantities of crude vegetation. “He’s processing leaves all day. Just sitting and chewing, and cooking inside. There’s no room for great thoughts.”
Those who know the human gut intimately see beauty, not only in its sophistication but in its inner landscapes and architecture. In a 1998 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, two Spanish physicians published a pair of photographs: “the haustrations of the transverse colon” side by side with the arches of an upper-floor arcade in Gaudi’s La Pedrera. Inspired, wanting to see my own internal Gaudi, I had my first colonoscopy without drugs.*
There is an unnameable feeling I’ve had maybe ten times in my life. It is a mix of wonder, privilege, humility. An awe that borders on fear. I’ve felt it in a field of snow on the outskirts of Fairbanks, Alaska, with the northern lights whipping overhead so seemingly close I dropped to my knees. I am walloped by it on dark nights in the mountains, looking up at the sparkling smear of our galaxy. Laying eyes on my own ileocecal valve, peering into my appendix from within, bearing witness to the magnificent complexity of the human body, I felt, let’s be honest, mild to moderate cramping. But you understand what I’m getting at here. Most of us pass our lives never once laying eyes on our organs, the most precious and amazing things we own. Until something goes wrong, we barely give them thought. This seems strange to me. How is it that we find Christina Aguilera more interesting than the inside of our own bodies? It is, of course, possible that I seem strange. You may be thinking, Wow, that Mary Roach has her head up her ass. To which I say: Only briefly, and with the utmost respect.
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* Not one was eaten. Research by University of Pennsylvania disgust expert Paul Rozin would have predicted a 57 percent consumption rate. In his study, subjects were asked whether they’d be willing to eat “fudge curled to look like dog feces.” It is a powerful taboo. Twelve percent refused to even touch it, even though they knew it was fudge.
* It’s called the FATLOSE trial. FATLOSE stands for “Fecal Administration To LOSE weight,” an example of PLEASE—Pretty Lame Excuse for an Acronym, Scientists and Experimenters.
* “Hi Mary—After reaching out to our Oster product team and reviewing the information you sent me, we have come to the conclusion that we prefer not to comment on this subject matter.”
* Kung pao chicken, if I had to guess.
* Or, less often, a nun’s hat, because of the resemblance to the Flying Nun–style wimple. Catholic nurses and hospital patients have from time to time voiced their indignation, and the term has been mostly retired.
? Typing colitis reliably brings “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” into my head. In my favorite case of mistaken lyrics, someone heard “The girl with kaleidoscope eyes” as “The girl with colitis goes by.”
* Kissing is a less aggressive form of bacterial transplant. Studies of three different gingivitis-causing bacteria have documented migration from spouse to spouse. Periodontically speaking, an affair might be viewed as a form of bacteriotherapy.
* Not typically a big deal. Most Europeans get scoped with sedation-on-demand. You’re set up with an IV ready to go, and need only say the word. Eighty percent never ask for the drugs.