Catarrhal enteritis : etiology and treatment / by Dr. Bottentuit.

  • Bottentuit, Eugène Léon.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Catarrhal enteritis : etiology and treatment / by Dr. Bottentuit. 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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    *) o The study of the discharges is important, as without them it would be difficult to iind any characteristic signs which would enable us to diagnose this affection. These patients all suffer from dyspepsia, they all present a coated condition of the tongue, more or less anorexia, swelling and discomfort of the stomach or intestines—in a word all the symptoms of gastro- intestinal dyspepsia. The examination of the abdomen reveals nothing or only those symptoms which characterise colitis or enterocolitis. The symptoms I have just enume- rated belong to many intestinal affections. Palpation or per- cussion does not oiler any special indications. Professor S6e, whose work on Atonie Intestinale is so re- markable, is of opinion that prolonged constipation has in- duced an irritation of the intestine. No doubt the presence of hardened fcecal matter has induced an inflammatory con- dition of the mucous membrane of the intestine, which acts on its secretive power and induces a hypersecretion of mucus and thus produces the alternations of diarrhoea and constipa tion which Niemeyer has so well studied. The cerebro-spinal system appears also to play an import- ant part in the production of these symptoms. The remark- able sedative effects produced by the waters of Plombieres confirm this view. A hypochondriacal tendency and all the various symptoms described under the name of neurasthenia are frequent concomitants of this affection. During twenty years of practice at Plombieres I have treated no fewer than 4,500 patients affected with gastro-enteric troubles, whether of the nature of gastric dyspepsia, of enteritis, of intestinal atony, or chronic diarrhoea. Of this number of patients I find that no fewer than 460 were affected with glairy enteritis, an affection which, I have already said, should not be confounded with colitis or dysentery. Women are more subject to this affection than men. I find 250 cases of women, 150 of men, and 60 of children. Almost all these patients presented signs of the arthritic or herpetic diathesis. I have often been able to trace the causation of the glairy secretions to the action of cold or damp. It is important carefully to separate the cases which we are now studying from these which are usually designated as cases of entero-colitis. None of the patients included in my sta- tistics presented the signs of inflammation of the intestine as revealed by palpation or percussion, but in all these cases the intestine secreted almost continually glairy mucus. They exhibited from time to time, and almost always under the influence of cold or damp, exacerbations of these symptoms. They all bore signs of the arthritic diathesis. Like all other such patients, they were frequently affected by exaggerated secretion of the mucous membranes of a catarrhal nature. This is my principal reason for giving the name of “catarrhal enteritis” to this affection. In point of age, the greater number of adult patients were between 20 and 50. In the case of children, between 4 and 15. In the 250 cases of women I have seen it coincide twenty-five times (10 per cent.) with pseudo-membranous metritis or dysmenorrhcea of like character. The affection was often, but not always, preceded by a more or less long period of constipation. Once, however, declared, the gastro-intestinal symptoms generally increased. I think that these cases ought to be divided into two groups: 1. The first group, which is the less numerous, is composed