Charles Alfred Tyrrell

Early life and family

Tyrrell was born in England and traveled to India, China, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia prior to emigrating to New York City in 1889. In his will dated 2 August 1915 Tyrrell said he had married “Eliza or Lillie” Glaister in Australia about thirty years previously. He said that she had disappeared and that three years later he married (his current wife) Emma W. But in 1914 he had learned that Eliza was still alive, and he made arrangements for her support. By his first marriage he had a son, Ernest Alfred Tyrell, who was born 1881.

Education

Having called himself “Professor” and an M.D. for years, Tyrrell finally got an M.D. degree in 1900 at age 57 from the Eclectic Medical College of New York. Eclectic Medicine was primarily concerned with herbal medicine.

Career

Tyrell established the Tyrell Hygienic Institute in New York City to promote his various books and products. His wife Emma was the corporate secretary. Although Tyrell died in 1918, the Institute seems to have existed at least until the late 1930s.

Ideal Sight Restorer

Tyrrell sold a device named the “Ideal Sight Restorer”. This was “a piece of tubing with a rubber bulb attached for the purpose of producing a partial vacuum over the eyeballs”. The device was reviewed by the AMA and criticized as "pseudomedical claptrap"; the manufacturer, Ideal Company, moved to England and was renamed "Neu-Vita Hygienic Institute"—to avoid prosecution.

J.B.L. Cascade

Tyrrell promoted an enema appliance he called the “J.B.L. Cascade”. "J.B.L." stood for “Joy, Beauty, Life”. This was his primary money-maker. He accessorized the product, selling “Rectal Soap” and a fluid, “J. B. L. Antiseptic Tonic”, a patent medicine, to be used with it. Tyrrell claimed that six years after his arrival in New York he had been hospitalized after a mysterious attack of paralysis and became extremely ill. He read a treatise by Dr. Alexander Wilford Hall promoting enema therapy, entered into such therapy, and experienced a complete restoration of health. In 1894, still enthusiastic about this result, he published the first edition of his book. It is unclear when the actual J.B.L. device was first manufactured. The AMA says that one Henry M. Guild invented the device and patented it in 1903, and assigned his patents to Tyrrell.

Publications

In 1894 Tyrrell wrote The Royal Road to Health, which continued through more than 260 editions, and which remains available today through online booksellers and can be downloaded at archive.org; by 1943 authorship was claimed by E. J. Borzilleri, who was associated with Tyrrell's Hygienic Institute. The book is designed to promote Tyrrell's enema device.

His articles include "A Peroration on Water", again relating to hygiene and enemas.

At his Hygienic Institute Tyrell also published a periodical, Health.

Tyrrell's Institute published similar works by other authors, such as Alcinous Burton Jamison's Intestinal Ills.

American Medical Association

The American Medical Association published critiques and exposees of Tyrrell in its Journal of the American Medical Association. The AMA leveled many criticisms of Tyrrell's product and promotion including the following:

1. The advertising for the JBL Cascade product was one of “deceit, misrepresentation, and quackery”
2. The underlying theory—that there is only one cause for disease and that cause is autointoxication resulting from intestinal obstruction – is “false” and “absurd”
3. The product itself may be dangerous.
4. The advice to take rectal enemas both in times of sickness and in health is “mischievous”. In respect of Tyrrell's publication Health, the AMA complained that its advertising section “reeked with frauds”.

Current Criticism

Tyrrell was cited as an “exemplary proponent” of the theory of auto-intoxication in a 1997 article by E. Ernst in the Journal of Gastroenterology titled “Colonic Irrigation and the Theory of Autointoxication: A Triumph of Ignorance over Science”, which likewise characterized Tyrrell as a “quack”.