Squatting upon the floor of the room, without any perceptible effort he passed into the hollow of his hand the contents of the rectum . . . , wrote the anonymous writer's physician in a letter printed in one of Fletcher's books. The excreta were in the form of nearly round balls, and left no stain on the hand. There was no more odour to it than there is to a hot biscuit. So impressive, so clean, was the man's residue that his physician was inspired to set it aside as a model to aspire to. Fletcher adds in a footnote that similar {dried} specimens have been kept for five years without change, hopefully at a safe distance from the biscuits.
The passage describes an extraordinary account of a man whose bodily excretion was notably clean and odorless, resembling the shape of round balls. The physician, impressed by this, detailed the experience in a letter, highlighting the lack of mess and smell, which was akin to that of a freshly baked biscuit. This remarkable cleanliness led the doctor to consider it a model for others to emulate.
In a footnote, the author references that similar specimens of this man's excreta were preserved for five years without alteration. This peculiar anecdote contributes to the exploration of human digestion and excretion presented in Mary Roach's book, revealing a unique perspective on a typically unspoken aspect of biology.
