DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF TUBERCULOSIS OF THE SMALL AND LARGE INTESTINE

Abstract

Intestinal tuberculosis may be primary or secondary. The primary form is largely of surgical interest and this paper deals only with the secondary form, which is almost always associated with pulmonary tuberculosis. In 1930, about 5,000 persons died from pulmonary tuberculosis in New York City. Intestinal tuberculosis is the most frequent complication of pulmonary tuberculosis and is found in from 50 to 80 per cent or even more of all autopsies performed on patients who have died from pulmonary tuberculosis. Eight per cent of 1,801 consecutive patients at the Trudeau Sanatorium had definite intestinal tuberculosis. Until within recent years the status of the diagnosis of intestinal tuberculosis was comparable to that of pulmonary tuberculosis twenty-five years ago, when an early diagnosis was the cause of wonderment. The heretofore "usual" symptoms of intestinal tuberculosis are those that occur in the more advanced stages of the disease; namely, persistent diarrhea, persistent abdominal