The Dysenteric Disorders: The Diagnosis and Treatment of Dysentery, Sprue, Colitis and Other Diarrhœas in General Practice

Abstract

This comprehensive work is the result of experience in the tropics and of extensive practice in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. In the course of the clinical work in this hospital in the last thirty years the author has made a study of 508 cases of amebic dysentery, 423 of sprue, 107 of bacillary dysentery, 116 of mucous colitis and forty-two of ulcerative colitis, as well as many cases of other intestinal diseases. This background has afforded a rich experience and a fund of practical knowledge which has provided the material for this much needed book. The contents fall into nine sections: introduction; bacillary, protozoal and helminthic dysenteries ; infective diarrheas; steatorrheas; disorders of the colon resembling dysentery; general disorders resembling dysentery, and other causes of diarrhea and dysenteriform symptoms. Ninety-four treat of bacillary dysenteries, 133 of amebiasis and seventy-eight of sprue and related conditions. The author stresses the necessity of sigmoidoscopy except when diagnosis is made certain by the recognition of the causative organism in the stools. The mere list of details to be inquired into in a clinical examination fills nearly three pages, with full directions for the procedures.