The patient was strapped to a chair or couch or had his--usually her--limbs held down by warders (wardresses) and nurses.

A steel or a wooden gag was then inserted, often with such roughness as to chip or break the teeth, and through the forced-open mouth a tube was pushed down the throat, sometimes far enough to hurt the stomach.

This produced an apoplectic condition of choking and nausea, and as the stomach filled up with liquid food the retching nearly killed the patient.
The windpipe became involved.

Food entered the lungs--the tongue was cut and bruised (Think what a mere pimple on the tongue means to some of us: it keeps _me_ awake half the night)--the lips were torn.
Worse still--requiring really a pathological essay to which I am not equal--was feeding by slender pipes through the nose.

The far simpler and painless process _per rectum_ was debarred because it might have constituted an indecent assault.
Was ever Ministry in a greater dilemma?
It was too old-fashioned, too antiquely educated to realize the spirit of its age, the pass at which we had arrived of conceding to Women the same rights as to men.