Medical Classics: The Faeces of Children and Adults, by P. J. Cammidge.
Review by Aidan M. O’Donnell. BMJ 2009; 338: b984.
Alfred Kinsey is best known for his famous works on sexual behaviour. However, the late Stephen Jay Gould admired him most for his earlier work, a definitive study of gall-forming wasps of the genus Cynips. Kinsey covered 18,000 miles to collect more than 300,000 individual specimens. Gould argued that Kinsey’s rigorous methods and scrupulous attention to detail lent him impeccable scholastic credentials, which made his later work on sexuality unshakeably solid.
Harvard’s only copy of Kinsey’s great wasp monograph contains this graffito: “Why don’t you write about something more interesting, Al?” As an undergraduate, I was disappointed to find that Kinsey wrote about sexuality with every bit as much academic detachment as he had no doubt applied to his wasps.
Kinsey was not alone in devoting an enormous amount of scholarly focus to the study of a small area of interest. In 1914, Percy John Cammidge of London published his unsung opus, The Faeces of Children and Adults. He was commissioned to write a translation of a German work on the subject by John Wright & Sons, a Bristol publisher who went on to publish the British Journal of Surgery. However, on “mature consideration” Cammidge deemed the German work inadequate, and resolved to undertake a work of far wider scope.
Empirical observation is a cornerstone of basic science. Cammidge arranged for samples to be sent from all over the world: “When the specimen has to be sent a long distance, especially in hot weather, it may be preserved by mixing it with a little formaldehyde. I have obtained satisfactory results from specimens from India, America and Australia.” He was insistent, however, that his specimens must not be contaminated with urine.
Having obtained his material, Cammidge performed macroscopic inspection, microscopic examination, bacteriological and chemical analysis. His descriptions were richly detailed and evocative. In constipation, “smaller masses, having a faceted surface, and resembling the dejecta of sheep, are sometimes seen.” He described how the oral administration of calomel turns the stools green; senna or gamboges turns them yellow; kino colours them red; haematoxylin violet, and methylene blue imparts “a bluish-green tint”.
Much of the book is given over to lengthy details of his chemical methods, and descriptions of his microscopic observations, but he also commented at length upon diet: “The copious drinking of water with meals should not be practised indiscriminately and certain pathological conditions would be a distinct contraindication.” “It may be stated as a fact that [alcoholic drinks] should be avoided by all persons under the age of thirty years, except in pathological conditions.” Condiments and spices “are most useful in the aged and feeble” but “an abuse of such substances gives rise to catarrh of the stomach and causes hyperaemia of the liver.” As a purgative, Cammidge recommended “semi-solid paraffin”, given “between bread as a sandwich”.
One of Cammidge’s aims was to deduce the processes of digestion by examining the faeces in the context of a known diet. Unfortunately for him, advances in physiology soon rendered his work obsolete, but his book still merits attention from the historian, and perhaps deserves a measure of wider recognition for its scope and detail.
Spare a thought for Cammidge, toiling in his laboratory amid his rainbow-coloured but odoriferous trophies, contemplating his unappetising lunch. His dissertation is a comprehensive masterpiece of analytical methods, rigorously applied. One can only wonder, however, if he ever got the chance to write about something more interesting.
Cammidge PJ. 1914. The Faeces of Children and Adults. Bristol, John Wright & Sons.
Gould SJ. 1985. The Flamingo’s Smile. London, Penguin Books.
Copyright © Aidan O’Donnell 2009.
This article first appeared in the British Medical Journal in 2009.
Unauthorised reproduction prohibited.
Aidan O'Donnell 
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