Enteroptosis and its relation to functional disturbances / by W.F. Hamilton.

  • Hamilton, W. F. (William Fawcett), 1865-1948.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Enteroptosis and its relation to functional disturbances / by W.F. Hamilton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    DISTURBANCES. BY W. F. Hamilton, M.D., Lecturer in Clinical Medicine, McGill University ; Assistant Physician to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal. The condition described by the term Enteroptosis has been attracting an increasing degree of attention during the past few years. Some years before Glenard’s monograph appeared, Virchow, Leube and others described the anomalous downward displacement of different abdominal organs, but in 1885 Glenard formulated his views upon this subject, accurately describing the condition of the abdominal viscera and the nervous phenomena connected therewith. Among the features prom- inent in this symptom-group which Treves is pleased to call “ that medley of symptoms,” are, downward displacement of the stomach, a movable right kidney, various digestive disturbances and often very typical neurasthenic symptoms. So sanguine was the pioneer observer among the French, and indeed among all writers, that he had discovered a solution to the difficult problem of many cases of neurasthenia, that he says at the close of one of his very early monographs upon the subject in a free translation as follows :—“ I can affirm that the physician who will follow my directions and strive to verify my statements in such cases will find in his practice the satisfaction which a positive diagnosis gives to both physician and patient from which alone a proper prognosis can be made, and that satisfaction, the greatest of all, which directs the treatment and avoids for the patient the trial upon him of so many remedies, while at the same time it secures him relief and prevents the physician himself from falling into therapeutic scepticism.” The next step of importance in the advancement of our knowledge on this subject is marked by the appearance of Ewald’s writings in 1890, and those of Pick, Boas, Kumpf, and Hufschmidt in 1892. With Ewald many of the Germans took sides against the French school on several points to which we may refer later. The German school claims that Glenard had reference but to the intestines in his descriptions, while, associated with ptosis of these parts, displacement of other organs was common. By the German school, the application of this term is broadened and more comprehensive. Schwerdt believes he is justified in speaking of enteroptosis when at least two organs are found pro- lapsed.