Chapter XLIX: Front Matter (49)

The question of contagion hinges upon the specificness of the disease, and cannot be definitely determined until this problem is finally solved. The old writers believed in the contagion of dysentery. Helidæus {794} declared that he "had often seen it communicated by the use of clyster-pipes previously used in the treatment of those suffering with the disease, and not properly cleaned;" and Horstius and Hildanus speak of the communicability of the disease from the latrines contaminated by dysenteric excreta. Van Swieten maintained that washerwomen contract it, and that physicians and nurses might be affected. Degner saw the disease spread from street to street in Nimeguen, while every one who came in contact with the disease became affected. Pringle observed it spread from tent to tent in the same way; and Tissot went so far as to declare, "Sil ya une maladie veritablement contagieuse c'est celle ci." Ziemssen believed that the disease is only contagious when the element of crowd-poisoning is superadded; and Heubner states that trustworthy army surgeons in the Franco-Prussian War frequently saw infection occur when many severe cases were heaped together in a small space. Under these circumstances thorough disinfection of the privies checked the spread of the disease. But it was the universal testimony of these surgeons, as also of our own surgeons of the Civil War, that the disease was never transported to the civil population by any of the tens of thousands of cases on their return to their homes.

By most modern writers dysentery is given a place, in respect to contagion, between the exanthematous maladies, typhus and scarlatina, which are without doubt contagious, and the purely miasmatic diseases, malarial and yellow fevers, which are without doubt not contagious. Dysentery is ranked with typhoid fever, which is contagious, not by contact with the body, but with the discharges. It is not a question in dysentery of epithelial drift or pulmonary exhalations, but of ingestion or reception of the dejecta of the disease. By this observation it is intended to convey the impression that dysentery, like typhoid fever, is mostly spread in this way, but the reverse may be true; it may be spread, like yellow fever and malaria, by poisons in the air. But dysentery, as has been repeatedly remarked, is only a clinical expression of a disease which may be caused in many ways; and among these causes, least potent perhaps, but present nevertheless, is contagion. For, not to mention the epidemics which were undoubtedly spread in this way, as among the Allies at Valmy in 1792, among the French in Poland in 1807, and in the hospital at Metz in 1870, dysentery has been directly communicated by the use of clysters, bed-pans, and privies in a most unmistakable way.

According to Eichhorst, the poison of dysentery is endowed with extraordinary persistence of duration or tenacity of life in the stools; for "observations are recorded where dysenteric stools have been emptied into privies, and individuals employed to clean them out after the lapse of ten years have been infected with the disease. These observations go to prove, of this as of other similar affections (typhoid fever), that the virus or microbe of the disease finds its most favorable nidus in vaults, cesspools, sewers, etc. When the poison is exposed to the air it is much more speedily destroyed, but is in the mean time of course a possible conveyer of the disease." Fayrer quotes from an anonymous writer, "whose views are as remarkable for their force as for their originality," the rather extravagant assertion that "if human excrement be not exposed to the air there can be no dysentery."

{795} Knoewenagel has recently[5] opened up a new series of reflections in his suggestion of a possible direct infection of the large intestine per rectum, where the disease usually begins and is mostly best expressed. He calls attention to the fact that people who suffer with constipation indulge in longer sessions at stools and induce in straining efforts a degree of relaxation of the rectal mucosa. The mucous membrane at its orifice may become at the same time abraded by hardened fecal masses, to leave open surfaces or crevices upon which germs may lodge. Moreover, aspiration follows the efforts at expulsion, and the air with its particles is drawn directly into the rectum, thus affording all the conditions for immediate or direct infection.

[Footnote 5: _Schmidt's Jahrbucher_, Sept. 25, 1882.]

At any rate, it must be admitted that the evidence in favor of contagion is in some cases too strong to be ignored. A single instance may suffice for illustration: Flügel reports that the towns of Nordhaben and Reichenbach, containing together twenty-two hundred inhabitants, were visited by dysentery in 1873, when nearly four hundred people were attacked. The visit of a relative carried the disease from Reichenbach to the daughter of an innkeeper at Tauchnitz, and from this house the disease spread over the whole place, so that in a short time more than one hundred people fell ill. Four to six, sometimes as many as eleven, members of one family were successively or simultaneously affected. The use of the same bed was the surest means of contagion.

The duration of the poison was proven in an exquisite case, which is, however, not entirely free from objection: Two children of an officer were severely affected in September and October, 1872. In January, 1873, the house was vacated and occupied by a successor in office, whereupon in April, six months after dysentery had disappeared from the place, the wife and child of the second officer were affected with the disease.

To sum up the etiology of dysentery in a few words, it may be said that few chapters in medicine are so thoroughly unsatisfactory, as the prospect of reconciling the accumulated discordant facts is very discouraging. Because of the singular uniformity in the symptoms and lesions the temptation is strong to look for a common cause, and to ascribe all cases to this cause, explaining differences by degree rather than by kind. Such a view would find solid support in the assumption of a specific germ, and would ally dysentery with typhoid fever, a disease which has likewise, in all cases, uniform symptoms and lesions, and which prevails in both sporadic and epidemic form. The advocates of this view would fix the poison of the disease in the air and alimentary canal (but not in the blood), and explain the existence of individual cases, as well as the prevalence of epidemics, by meteorological conditions as affecting the growth or dissemination of specific germs. Nor would the adoption of this view exclude the possibility of producing the catarrhal (sporadic) cases by many kinds of noxious germs, including those of common putrefaction. Hot air and wet air are notorious bearers and breeders of germs, and the law of gravity keeps them near the surface of the earth--conditions which coincide with the prevalence of the disease in the tropics and among individuals (soldiers) who sleep upon the ground. If the contagion of the disease be admitted, the existence of a {796} contagium animatum is implied at once, for no chemical poison has the power of propagation.

But the germ of dysentery has not been found as yet, and until it has been found, cultivated in suitable soil, and inoculated to produce the disease, the evidence of its existence remains merely presumptive.

So that at the present time dysentery must be regarded as a malady which stands in closer relation to, or finds a better analogue in, cholera than typhoid fever; for cholera is a disease which has the same geography, has likewise nearly uniform symptoms and lesions, so far as it leaves any, and certainly has two distinct forms of origin--one clearly specific, cholera Asiatica, and the other catarrhal, cholera morbus.

PATHOLOGY.--Dysentery is a local malady, but, like every local malady if sufficiently severe, it may show constitutional effects. It is usually gradually ushered in from a lighter form of gastro-intestinal catarrh. After a stage of incubation which lasts from a few hours to a few days symptoms of dyspepsia and diarrhoea set in or increase, attended with anorexia, heartburn, nausea, eructation or borborygmi, pain in the abdomen, and copious fluid discharges. Hereupon ensue the pains and the discharges characteristic of the disease. Violent griping and colicky pains (tormina) traverse the abdomen, with sickening sensations of depression. The desire of evacuation of the bowels (tenesmus) becomes intense and more or less constant, and the discharge itself is attended with little or no relief. At the same time the region of the rectum, intensely inflamed, is the seat of intolerable burning pain, which becomes excruciating with the introduction of a speculum or the finger.

The discharges may be copious, dark-brown, thin, and highly offensive (bilious dysentery), may contain occasional hard round fecal casts of intestinal sacculi (scybalæ), or may become more and more scant, until with the most violent efforts only the minutest quantity is extruded of mucus, generally streaked or tinged with blood (rose mucus) like the rusty sputum of pneumonia. Later, all effort at emptying the alimentary canal may be futile (dysenteria sicca), or the mucus may be pure or commingled with pus to remain perfectly colorless (dysenteria alba), or with blood in larger quantity (dysenteria rubra). In other cases, or at other periods in the same case, the discharges consist of fleshy masses composed of inspissated mucus or pus, blood, and tissue-débris (lotura carnea). Sometimes, though rarely, the discharges consist of pure blood, but oftener of a copious turbid fluid, which on standing separates into a clear upper layer of serum and a sediment of disintegrated lotura carnea. Or, lastly, the sediment is composed of small round vitreous masses, evidently swollen by maceration to look like sago-grains, which have been erroneously supposed to represent the liberated contents of the intestinal follicles.

The general condition of the patient suffers correspondingly. There may be fever or there may be none throughout the whole course of the disease, but the pain and discharges quickly exhaust the strength of the patient, and in severe or long-continued cases lead to emaciation and profound prostration.

The skin is hot and dry; the tongue is heavily coated; the face wears an anxious expression. The abdomen is tumid with gases, or in more advanced cases sunken, discolored, and tender, especially in the course {797} of the colon, whose thickened walls may often be felt beneath the emaciated surface. The anus is spasmodically constricted, or in the worst cases paralyzed, patulous, and livid or blue. Prolapse of the rectum is common in children, and excoriation of the perineum by the acrid discharges is not infrequent.

Finally, a typhoid state may set in or a pyæmia occur, when the discharges may become involuntary or unconscious, and brain symptoms--insomnia, stupor, delirium, and coma--supervene; or the patient may linger long enough to perish by simple exhaustion or marasmus.

Under favorable hygiene the great majority of cases of catarrhal dysentery recover without special treatment in the course of from three to ten days, but specific dysentery has no definite duration and but little tendency to spontaneous cure. The worst cases are often quickly controlled by appropriate interference, and the most surprising results may be sometimes obtained in cases of even years' duration. On the other hand, a certain percentage of cases is characterized by a defiance to every kind of treatment, including the last resort, a change of climate.

An acute case of catarrhal dysentery generally subsides without lesions, and the natural duration of the attack may be much abbreviated by proper treatment. Specific or epidemic dysentery lasts from two to four weeks, or, becoming chronic, continues for years or for life, with exacerbations and remissions.

Various complications are liable to occur in the course of the disease. Three deserve especial mention--viz. affection of the joints (rheumatism), paralysis, and abscess of the liver. Perforation and peritonitis, always possibilities, and deformities of the colon, thickenings, and constrictions, are not infrequently left.

MORBID ANATOMY.--The lesions of dysentery are the ordinary signs of inflammation of a mucous membrane and its subjacent structures. They do not differ in any essential way from those of any mucous surface in a state of inflammation, the minor variations being due to differences in the anatomy and physiology of the part affected. Thus, a description of the pathological process in inflammation of the pharynx, bronchi, or uterus would answer upon the post-mortem table for the same process in the large intestine, and the finer microscopic lesions could be differentiated in any case only by the histology of the part affected.

A slight lesion of any mucous membrane constitutes what is known as a catarrhal process; a more grave affection, a diphtheritic process; a more chronic inflammation, a hypertrophic or hyperplastic process. Hence an easy distinction between sporadic and epidemic cases might be based upon the character of the lesion found. But, as has been stated already, it is impossible to draw a line between catarrhal and specific cases, the same lesions being found in either form. The difference, so far as the morbid anatomy is concerned, is wholly in degree or stage, and not at all in kind, the specific (epidemic) form presenting the graver lesion as a rule. So most cases of sporadic dysentery show only catarrhal lesions, while most cases of epidemic dysentery show diphtheritic lesions.

Catarrhal dysentery shows as its first obvious alteration a hyperæmia of the mucous surface. It is limited exclusively to the large intestine in the vast majority of cases, and only in rare exceptions affects the small intestine, though cases have been mentioned as curiosities in which the {798} process has reached the stomach in its upmost prolongation. The hyperæmia is most marked, as a rule, in the lowest parts of the large intestine, the rectum and descending colon, but there is, as Virchow has pointed out, a peculiar predisposition to affection at the seat of all the flexures, the iliac, hepatic, splenic, sigmoid, where the additional element of fecal arrest or impaction is superadded to the cause of the disease.

The catarrhal process occurs first in detached spots or streaks upon the projecting folds or duplicatures of the mucous membrane; which spots coalesce to form extensive surfaces. Examined by transmitted light, these surfaces show a distinct arborescence of the vessels. Or the disease may commence in the follicles in distinct areas of the large intestine, and may remain confined to these structures to constitute the variety known as follicular dysentery.

The hyperæmia of inflammation is attended with dilatation and paresis of the vessel-walls and retardation of the circulation. The whole process may be arrested at this stage, so that there escapes from the vessels, at most, only serum to develop the oedema which, with the defective nutrition from arrest of the circulation, gives rise to the softening of the epithelial cells. These cells may be thus lifted from their bed to constitute the process of desquamation, the fundamental anatomical characteristic of acute dysentery, by which process the submucous connective tissue is laid bare and the so-called catarrhal ulcer results. Or the epithelium, but partially detached, may remain upon the surface, "either raised in the shape of small vesicles which contain clear serum, or it forms a grayish-white layer resembling the mealy scurf of the epidermis--an appearance which probably induced Linnæus to term dysentery scabies intestinorum interna" (Rokitansky).

Kelsch maintains that the inflammatory process in dysentery commences in the delicate connective tissue between the follicles, the network of small spindle-shaped cells with multiple nuclei becoming speedily penetrated by a number of very small, newly-formed vessels. Where the epithelium is desquamated the surface is covered with granulations as after a wound. The disposition of the follicles is soon deranged, for, instead of standing in rows like gun-barrels, they are pushed asunder and uplifted, so as to remain at different heights. Their interior becomes blocked with mucus or their orifices occluded, so that retention-cysts are formed to give rise to the appearance of the bead necklace. Soon the walls of neighboring follicles coalesce, dissolve away, and communication is established between them. The interior of these communicating tubes or canals is filled with vitreous mucus; the walls are stripped of their lining cells, but their "blind extremities contain still adherent colossal epithelial cells." Moreover, the follicles break into each other under the proliferative budding process, so that the end of a distorted tube may be found in the interior of another. Where follicles are destroyed the mucous membrane above them or in their vicinity collapses--a condition observed and described by Colin as effrondement. The mucosa in these regions may appear perfectly uninjured, but by "blowing upon it with a tube it is lifted up like an ampulla to show an opening in its centre," though more frequently the mucous membrane collapses or sinks in at the region of destruction. The inner surface of the mucosa is rendered additionally uneven by the elevations or protuberances caused by the {799} proliferations in the submucous connective tissue. The older writers (Pringle, Hewson) regarded these projections as tumors of the mucosa, and Rokitansky, who describes their true nature, speaks of them as warty, tubercular (nodular) swellings or fungoid excrescences--constituting a condition, he says, which Gély has termed hypertrophie mamelonné. The alternate elevations and depressions thus produced have been likened to the representations of bird's-eye views of mountain-chains.

As a rule, occasional red blood-corpuscles are also permitted to escape through the vessel walls in the process of diapedesis to give to the surface mucus its characteristic tinge, and punctate submucous hemorrhage is very frequently seen.

The pressure of the swollen, softened mucosa upon the sensitive nerves, and the irritation of the acrid intestinal contents, are often invoked to account for the constant desire of defecation (tenesmus) which constitutes such an essential symptom of the disease; but both the tenesmus and the colicky pains (tormina) precede the anatomical changes, and are much more rationally explained by the direct action upon the nerves of the cause of the disease, or by the derangement of innervation effected through changes in the circulation.

An acute case of catarrhal dysentery may exhibit no further lesions, and in the lightest cases even these may have entirely disappeared post-mortem, so that no change at all may be observed at the autopsy.

In a more severe or protracted case the other alterations which constitute the more complete cycle of the inflammatory process follow the stage of hyperæmia. The arrest of circulation becomes more or less complete, and the white corpuscles emigrate from the vessels to form the pus-cells. Fibrin, or the elements which compose it, also escapes to infiltrate the mucous membrane and remain upon its surface. The pseudo-membranous or diphtheritic process is now developed, and may vary in intensity from a mere frosting of the surface to dense infiltration of the entire thickness. The false membrane, as well as the mucous membrane, next suffers necrosis to form more or less extensive sloughs. These sloughs are grayish-white when fresh, dark-brown when stained by the intestinal contents, or greenish or black when undergoing gangrene. They may cover patches of the mucosa or the whole mucosa from the ileo-cæcal valve to the rectum. They soon become soft and pultaceous, hang in flaps or festoons in the interior of the intestinal tube, or, detached, are voided in fragments or shreds. One such fragment nine inches long is recorded in Woodward's exhaustive description of the pathology of this disease. Examined under the microscope, they are seen to consist of coagulated fibrin, red and white blood-corpuscles, epithelial cells and débris, necrotic pieces of mucosa, and myriads of micrococci and other micro-organisms.

The fall of the sloughs leaves the dysenteric ulcer. Its edges are irregular and ragged, its base uneven like a crater, and its surface is more or less covered with pultaceous débris. The submucous connective tissue may form its base, or, this structure having been also destroyed, the muscularis may be exposed, or in more extensive necrobiosis the peritoneum itself may be laid bare. Occasionally this last barrier is broken down, and perforation occurs. Or an acute peritonitis may be developed, in dysentery as in typhoid fever, by simple extension of the inflammatory {800} process without perforation. Perforation is very rare in cases of follicular ulceration, and is by no means frequent in the diphtheritic process, but it is the most frequent cause of peritonitis in chronic dysentery. It may occur in any part of the colon, but does occur most frequently in the cæcum. The resulting peritonitis is fatal as a rule, but the danger is obviated sometimes, as in typhoid fever, by agglutination of the gut to a contiguous structure or viscus. Perforation usually occurs late in the disease, but it may occur very early. Thus Nägele reports from the Franco-Prussian War a case in which perforation took place on the fourth day, the diagnosis having been confirmed by an autopsy. In rare cases a perityphlitis may ensue, with its natural consequences, or periproctitis may be developed with perineal abscess, or, finally, fistulæ may form to burrow about and discharge themselves anywhere in or upon the surface of the abdomen, the lumbar region, or the thigh. Bamberger describes cases of perityphlitis attending dysentery, in some of which resorption occurred, while in others pus was discharged upon the surface of the abdomen; and the writer of this article once saw, in consultation with T. A. Reamy, a case of fistula which extended from the descending colon to the vagina. Through the opening made to discharge the pus from a fluctuating abscess pointing in the vaginal vault an india-rubber tube could be passed for six to eight inches. The patient finally died from marasmus.

Chronic dysentery is distinguished by the alterations which occur in inflammation developing more gradually and extending over a longer period of time. Under the irritative changes resulting from an altered circulation the connective tissue undergoes marked hyperplasia, so that the wall of the intestine becomes at times enormously thickened, and its calibre is often correspondingly diminished. Cornil observes that acute or subacute dysentery is characterized by infiltration of the submucous connective tissue, followed by destruction, while in chronic dysentery the predominant lesion is essentially a proliferation and thickening of the connective tissue of the large intestine. The muscular tissue also undergoes hypertrophy, and the peritoneum becomes thickened and opaque. Sometimes the peritoneum is covered with patches of false membrane, or agglutination occurs with other portions of the intestine to give rise to contortions or occlusions.

Ulceration shows itself in chronic dysentery in every grade and stage of the process, from the first denudations to old cicatrizations. In bad cases the whole course of the colon from the ileo-cæcal valve to the rectum may constitute one vast tract of suppuration. Blood-vessels may be opened by the necrotic process, and copious, even fatal, hemorrhage may ensue. When pure blood is discharged, the hemorrhage usually occurs in this way per rhexem, but the quantities of blood evacuated with other elements usually escape per diapedesem.

The cicatrization which results puckers the edges of the ulcers, and may in cases of extensive or circular ulceration lead to more or less stenosis of the intestinal tube. According to Rindfleisch, the scars of dysenteric ulcers are very prone to contract, so that "the liability of a subsequent stricture is directly proportionate to the extent of the previous ulceration." The danger in these cases may be immediate from entire, or more remote from partial, occlusion. Thus, Bamberger records a case of {801} typhlitis due to impaction of feces above a stenosis gradually developed from a dysenteric ulcer.

Although dysentery is a disease of the large intestine, its lesions are not exclusively limited to this structure. It is always a purely local disease at first, and, strictly speaking, continues so throughout its course, yet it produces in severe or chronic cases widespread and general effects. Rapid emaciation sets in, and anæmia is soon pronounced in all the internal organs. The mesenteric glands show signs of irritation or of absorption of specific products in hyperæmic pigmentation and hyperplasia. The kidneys in acute cases exhibit venous stasis, and in chronic cases may undergo parenchymatous change. The joints are peculiarly liable to suffer in certain cases, and the nervous system may exhibit lesions--points to be described in the symptomatology of the disease. Should pyæmia occur, it superimposes its own particular lesions in the serous membranes and internal organs. All of these affections are to be regarded, however, rather as complications than essential effects.

But the liver is found affected so frequently in dysentery as to constitute more than a mere coincidence. Schneider has recently (1873) reported of the results of his observations on 1400 cases of tropical dysentery that in the 395 post-mortem examinations the liver was found normal in but 10 cases. The abnormalities were as follows: hyperæmia of various grades, 160; fatty degeneration, 62; abscess, 57; nutmeg liver, 47; perihepatitis, 25; granular atrophy, 19; syphilitic atrophy, 8; cicatrices, 6; excavation with helminth, 1. Bérenger-Féraud (1883) reports of 411 fatal cases of dysentery observed at Senegal that the liver appeared sound to the naked eye 98 times (23 per cent.) and diseased "undeniably" 313 times (77 per cent.). Of the 313 cases of hepatic affection there were found--hypertrophy, softening, or hyperæmia, 123 times (39 per cent.); abscess, 143 times (46 per cent.); simple discoloration, 29 times (9 per cent.); atrophy or cirrhosis, 18 times (6 per cent.). Annesley found abscess of the liver 21 times in 29 cases of dysentery; Hospel, 13 times in 25 cases; and Budd found ulceration of the large intestine 10 times in 17 cases of hepatic abscess. Gluck had the opportunity of making 28 post-mortem examinations in 151 cases of dysentery in Bucharest, finding abscess of the liver 16 times. All these authors adopt the explanation first offered by Budd of direct transfer of diseased products through the mesenteric and portal veins.

But more extensive observation has developed the fact that the frequency of abscess of the liver in connection with dysentery is a peculiarity of tropical climates. In the temperate and colder regions of the North this complication is not by any means so frequent. Frerichs declares that of 16 observations collected by Louis and Andral, "ulcers were present in only 3, and in 2 of these cases the ulcers were tubercular; of his own 8 cases, there was intestinal affection in none." Gluck believes that the liver is more prone to show suppuration when already predisposed to it by a preceding amyloid or cirrhotic change of malarial origin. Eichhorst calls attention to the well-known fact that abscess of the liver is especially a disease of the tropics independently of dysentery, and the frequency of its occurrence here may be a mere coincidence. But it must be remembered that opportunity for post-mortem examination, upon the {802} results of which these statistics are based, does not occur in the great majority of cases of dysentery, and abscess of the liver is very often overlooked. Thus, Schneider cites cases where persons with abscess of the liver of the size of the head were considered simulants up to twenty-four hours before death. Since the diagnosis of hepatic abscess has been made so easy by aspiration, cases begin to multiply; and it is doubtless the experience of most practitioners, in the temperate zone at least, that the decided majority of cases of hepatic abscess acknowledge an existing or previous attack of dysentery. Certainly, few authors would now venture to subscribe to the view of Annesley, that the abscess of the liver was the primary malady and was the cause of the dysentery.

SYMPTOMATOLOGY.--Dysentery, as stated, begins, as a rule, with the general signs of a gastro-intestinal catarrh. So frequent is this mode of inception, and so few are the exceptions, that it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the disease is caused by the introduction of a noxious element into the alimentary canal. The irritation thus induced begins at the stomach, and is rapidly propagated throughout the whole tract of the intestine. In the course of a few days the cause of the disease becomes strictly localized to the large intestine, whose greater capacity and more sluggish movement fit it for the easier reception and longer retention of noxious matter.

But specific dysentery and the more intense forms of catarrhal dysentery occasionally exhibit distinctive symptoms from the start, and in rarer cases the disease is suddenly announced with such tempestuous signs as to excite the suspicion of poisoning. Thus, a case (one of five lighter cases) is reported from the Rudolfstiftung in Vienna (1878) where the disease closely simulated Asiatic cholera, and where it rapidly ran a fatal course, in spite of laudanum, soda-water, ice pills, mustard plasters, injections of amyl nitrite, camphor, and ether, and faradization of the phrenic nerve to stimulate the failing respiration. Finger reports similar cases from the hospital at Prague.

Ordinarily, the peculiar pains of dysentery first proclaim the character of the disease. The severe grinding, twisting pains, tormina, are more or less localized in the course of the colon, and hence surround or traverse the entire abdomen, the pains at the epigastrium being due to spasmodic contractions of the transverse colon. The patient in vain adopts various postures in relief or sits with his hands firmly compressing the abdominal walls. The tormina are more or less intermittent or remittent, and are usually experienced in greatest severity toward evening. During their acme the face wears the aspect of the intense suffering, which is expressed in outcries and groans. At the same time there is upon pressure over the whole abdomen more or less tenderness, which soon comes to be especially localized at the cæcum or sigmoid flexure.

The tenesmus (cupiditas egerendi) is a more distressing, and certainly more distinctive, sign of dysentery. It is the feeling of heavy weight or oppression, of the presence of a foreign body in the rectum, which demands instant relief. At the same time intense heat is felt in the rectum, which the patient likens sometimes to the passage of a red-hot iron. The desire of evacuation becomes as frequent as urgent. In well-marked cases the patient sits at stool half an hour or an hour at a time, straining until faint {803} and exhausted, leaving the commode with reluctance, only immediately or very soon to use it again.

Great depression is felt at the stomach at the same time, with nausea, occasionally with vomiting; and strangury, with the discharge of only a few drops of scalding urine or blood from the bladder, adds additional suffering to the disease. Retraction of the testicle and prolapsus ani, especially in children, are prone to occur in severe cases.

But neither the pain nor the prostration is so characteristic of dysentery as the stools, which, though of very varied nature, are nevertheless distinctive. After the discharge of the intestinal contents the first evacuations consist of mucus in the form of glairy, stringy matter, like the white of an egg, expressed as the result of the violent efforts at straining. The mucus may be pure or tinged with blood, but it is usually very scant in quantity, and stands in this regard in marked contrast with the violence of the efforts to secure its extrusion. It is the frequency of its discharge which constitutes an especial distress. Twenty to forty, even two hundred, times in the twenty-four hours the patient must go to stool. In the worst cases the patient sits at stool or lies upon the bed-pan the most of the day.

The mucus is sooner or later mingled with pus or stained with blood. The presence of pus by no means necessarily implies the existence of ulceration, as the apparently pure mucus always shows occasional white blood-corpuscles under the microscope, and even extensive suppurations occur without apparent solutions of continuity.

The presence of blood is equally characteristic of dysenteric stools. Usually it is intimately commingled with the mucus or pus or forms the chief element of the copious so-called bilious discharge. The evacuation of pure blood indicates erosion of vessels low in the colon, often in the rectum itself, though enormous quantities of blood are sometimes voided from unbroken surfaces. Thus Lécard reports the case of a soldier who "while sitting restless at stool lost one and a half quarts of blood." The patient died on the fifth day of the disease, and at the autopsy there was found "apoplectiform congestion from the ileo-cæcal valve to the anus, but no ulcers anywhere, nor any broken vessels."

Besides the mucus, pus, and blood, the dysenteric stools contain the sloughs which have been torn off by violent peristalsis in cases of the diphtheritic form. Usually they are separated in shreds and fragments, but occasionally large sheets, even casts of a section of the colon, are voided en masse. These were the cases considered by the older authors to be detachments of the mucous membrane itself. As already observed, these fragments consist for the most part of inspissated mucus, pus, blood, and tissue-débris; but there is no doubt that in some cases partially necrosed mucosa also enters into their construction. One enormous tubular cast fourteen inches long, preserved in our Army Medical Museum, was found to be "composed of pseudo-membranous lymph in which no traces of the structure of the mucous membrane could be detected" (Woodward).

There still remains to be mentioned the boiled-sago or frogs'-spawn matter whose origin has given rise to such a curious mistake. Not infrequently these vitreous-looking bodies compose the bulk of the sediment in the stools of dysentery, and even some of our modern authors, {804} unacquainted with the more searching investigations of Virchow, have regarded them as expressed contents of intestinal follicles. Virchow found that under the application of iodine they always assumed a blue color, whereupon he ironically remarks that the sago-like mucus is really mucus-like sago. They are simply granules of starch ingested as food, to remain partially or wholly undigested.

The scybalæ, the composite matter known as the lotura carnea, and the micro-organisms found in the stools have already received mention elsewhere.

Although the stools of dysentery are scant, as a rule, they are so frequent as to discharge during the entire twenty-four hours a very large quantity of albuminous matter. Oesterlen has made the curious calculation to show that the mean daily loss of albuminates in dysentery of moderate intensity is from 50 to 60 grammes during the first fourteen days, and on an average about 20 grammes during the next eight days. The total loss experienced in an attack of three weeks' duration thus amounts to about 1000 grammes--in rough figures, two pounds avoirdupois. The rapidity with which emaciation, hydrops, and marasmus occur in severe cases is thus easily accounted for. Nägele speaks of cases where patients were reduced to skeletons in eight to fourteen days, so that the convalescence extended over six weeks to eight months.

The alteration in the character of the secretion in dysentery is not confined to the mucous membrane of the large intestine. On the contrary, all the digestive juices are changed, in some cases entirely checked. In the graver cases the saliva takes on an acid reaction and loses its glycogenic properties; the gastric juice in the same cases becomes alkaline and loses its peptonizing properties; while the secretion of the bile is wholly arrested. Uffelmann, who had the rare opportunity of studying the secretion of bile in a case of biliary fistula, relates that during an attack of dysentery the bile ceased entirely to flow, and only began to show itself again, at first greenish, then greenish-brown, finally brown, during the process of resolution on the ninth day of the disease. The anorexia, nausea, and vomiting which so often mark the access or attend the course of dysentery find thus easy explanation.

Should the disease continue, the general strength of the patient becomes so profoundly reduced as to resemble the status typhosus. The tongue, which has been hitherto thickly coated, now becomes black, shows fissures, and bleeds, while the gums are covered with sordes. The pulse becomes feeble, thready, or barely perceptible. The skin is dry and harsh or scaly. The abdomen is tumid or collapsed, the anus paralyzed, and the discharges continuously ooze out to excoriate the perineum. While the brain is usually clear throughout the disease, insomnia, stupor, or coma develop in the gravest cases from absorption of disease-products (Senator), or death suddenly ensues from heart-clot or from thrombus of the venous sinuses of the dura mater (Busey).

Pyæmia announces itself with a series of chills, followed by irregular temperature, by the speedy occurrence of multiple abscesses in distant organs, venous thromboses, affections of the serous membranes, pleuritis, pericarditis, and embolic pneumonia. Gangrene of the intestine, which may occur as early as the third day of the disease (Nägele), is evidenced by the signs of general collapse.

{805} COMPLICATIONS AND SEQUELÆ.--The lighter cases of dysentery, as well as most of the grave cases, run their entire course without complication, and often without sequelæ. But a certain percentage of cases is attended with complications on the part of the joints (rheumatism), of the nervous system (paralysis), and on the part of the liver and the kidneys.

Arthritis, when it occurs, shows itself, as a rule, in the second week of the disease (Eichhorst), or after the disease has run its course, during the period of convalescence (Huelte). That it is not a mere coincidence is evidenced by the fact that it is present in a large number of cases in certain epidemics, while it is not present independently of dysentery. Thus, Braun of Stannenheim saw in the two epidemics of 1833-34 more than forty cases of rheumatism, and Huelte reports ten cases observed by himself in the epidemic at Montargis in 1854. Certain epidemics are distinguished by the rarity of this complication, while most are marked by its absence altogether. In the epidemic at Rahden (1872), 400 cases among 3800 inhabitants, Rapmund saw inflammation of the joints set in only six times; and the entire absence or extreme rarity of it in later epidemics have led most physicians to deny any connection between the diseases, or to regard the joint affection as incident to a complicating scorbutus or neuralgia. All authors who admit it describe the knee-joint as being the most frequent seat of the affection, but acknowledge that it is mostly polyarticular; while there is much difference of opinion whether it ever presents the general signs of true rheumatism--pyrexia, diaphoresis, or its complications on the part of the heart. Huelte maintains that it does not, and that it is allied to gonorrhoeal rheumatism in this respect, while Eichhorst states that it may not only show all these signs, but may be followed in exceptional cases by suppuration and ankylosis. It usually lasts four to six weeks, but neither its occurrence nor its severity stands in any relation to the intensity of the attack of dysentery. It is probably to be regarded as a manifestation of a light pyæmia or septicæmia, as it is a frequent manifestation of this condition in or after scarlatina, puerperal fever, and the septic fevers of surgery.

Paralysis has been observed to occur after dysentery ever since the days of Galen, and, disregarding the observations of ancient and of the older periods of modern times, we find occasional records of cases in our own days. Leyden,[6] in reporting a case of paresis and rheumatic pains following an attack of dysentery, says that although post-dysenteric paralysis is now rarely mentioned, it was frequent in the older reports, and claims it as an admitted fact that it occurs not at all infrequently now. Joseph Frank quotes some observations of this kind, and refers especially to the dissertation of Fabricius.[7] These paralyses, Fabricius observes, have been seen after the premature suppression of malignant epidemics of dysentery by opiates and astringents. Observations were afterward recorded by Graves in which paralysis occurred after colics and inflammation of the intestines; and English veterinary surgeons mention the fact that paralytic weakness of the posterior extremities of horses and cattle follow attacks of intestinal inflammation. The paralysis, when it occurs, is usually confined to the lower extremities, but may extend to {806} and involve the upper extremities, by preference in the form of paralysis transversa (opposite arm and leg). Brown-Séquard attributes it to reflex contraction of the blood-vessels; Jaccoud, to exhaustion of the nerve-centres; and Röser, to the contact of the inflamed transverse colon with the solar plexus. Remak first suggested the idea of an ascending neuritis--a view which would seem to be corroborated by the paralysis observed after the experiments, by Lewisson, of crushing the uterus, kidneys, bladder, or loop of intestine, and which finds additional support, as Leyden remarks, in the length of time which lapses before it appears. Landouzy[8] says that Finger found diffuse myelitis in a patient affected with paralysis supervening upon cancer of the intestine, and that Delioux and Savignac saw spots of softening in the cervical and lumbar region of the cord in the case of a man affected with post-dysenteric paralysis. Weir Mitchell suggests the possibility of other factors--long marches, malaria, bad diet, and injuries to the spine--in the genesis of the cases, mostly paraplegias, observed by him; and Woodward calls attention to lead-poisoning (as by treatment) in explanation of a certain number of cases.

[Footnote 6: "On Reflex Paralysis," _Volkmann's Sammlungen_.]

[Footnote 7: _Paralysis seu hemiplegia transversa resolutionem brachii unius et pedis alterius exhibet_, Helmstedt, 1750.]

[Footnote 8: _Des Paralysies dans les Maladies aigues_.]

Abscess of the liver gives rise to few distinctive symptoms, and is mostly recognized or suspected, in the absence of positive signs, by the persistence or obstinacy of the dysentery. The ease and impunity with which aspiration may be performed in its recognition justifies the use of it in every doubtful case.

Regarding complications on the part of the kidneys, Zimmerman recognizes four classes of cases: (1) mild cases, showing no albumen and no casts; (2) severe, long-continued cases, with putrid stools, status nervosus, and collapse, showing albumen; (3) cases commencing with nervous symptoms, paralysis, scanty urine, showing kidneys filled with exudation-cells and detritus; and (4) cases of speedy renal complication and death. To these may be added the cases of protracted chronic dysentery with long-continued suppuration, entailing the possibility, of really rare actual occurrence, of amyloid degeneration and chronic parenchymatous change (Bartels).

Dysentery may be further complicated by parotitis; by venous thrombosis (phlegmasia dolens); by diphtheritic deposits on other mucous surfaces, which Virchow declares to be exceedingly rare; and by hydrops, which is oftener a concomitant of the period of convalescence.

Besides the deformities of the colon, which may ensue as a consequence of ulceration or peritonitis, a long attack of dysentery is apt to leave a hyperæsthetic or non-resistant state of the mucous surface, so that every imprudence in exposure or in diet begets an intestinal catarrh or a relapse of the disease.

DIAGNOSIS.--When dysentery presents itself with its whole train of symptoms the recognition of the disease is very easy. The tormina and tenesmus, the peculiar discharges, the rapid reduction of strength, leave no doubt as to the nature of the affection. The prevalence of an epidemic of the disease will often establish the character of a case even when all the signs are not present or when anomalies occur. Embarrassment in diagnosis only attends the recognition of catarrhal or isolated cases, and in these cases there may be a doubt as between dysentery and {807} diarrhoea--if such a symptom can be called a disease--or typhoid fever, cholera, or some purely local affection of the rectum, cancer, hemorrhoids, etc. In children difficulty of diagnosis may arise as between dysentery and intussusception.

Dysentery is differentiated from that lighter form of intestinal catarrh whose main symptom is diarrhoea by the presence of tenesmus in dysentery, as well as by its mucous, muco-purulent, diphtheritic, and bloody discharges. Dysentery lasts longer than diarrhoea as a rule, and does not yield so readily to treatment.

Typhoid fever shows from the start brain symptoms, which are absent from dysentery; has a typical temperature-curve, whereas there may be no fever in dysentery, or, if any, of irregular remittent type; is often prefaced by epistaxis and attended with bronchitis, both of which are absent in dysentery; and exhibits ochre-colored pea-soup stools, altogether different from those of dysentery.

Cholera morbus distinguishes itself from dysentery by its sudden onset, its profuse vomiting and discharges, its violent cramps, and the speedy collapse.

Cancer of the rectum can be usually felt, and hemorrhoids can be always seen, so that no difficulty should be experienced in the recognition of these cases.

Intussusception occurs mostly in children, and has, in common with dysentery, vomiting, mucous or bloody stools, colic, tenesmus, nervous unrest, and prostration, so that a differential diagnosis may be impossible for a few days. The more strict localization of an intussusception, which may sometimes be felt as a sausage-like mass, most frequently in the right ileum and hypochondrium, the greater frequency and persistency of the vomiting and pain, the presence visibly or palpably of the invaginated gut at the anus or rectum, soon enable the careful examiner to recognize the case.

PROGNOSIS.--The prognosis of dysentery varies between extremes. Some cases are so mild as to merit the remark of Sydenham concerning certain cases of scarlet fever: "Vix nomen morbi merebantur." They terminate of themselves under favorable hygiene without especial treatment. On the other hand, no known disease has a more frightful mortality than dysentery in some of its epidemics, especially in army-life. It was this class of cases which Trousseau had in mind when he called dysentery the most murderous of all diseases. Sixty to eighty may be the appalling percentage of death in these cases.

Under favorable surroundings the average mortality of dysentery amounts to 5-10 per cent., but is much influenced by the age and the general condition of the patient, as well as by the complications which occur in its course. Thus, Sydenham said of it over two hundred years ago, "It is not infrequently fatal to adults, and still more so to old men, but is nevertheless exceedingly harmless to infants, who will bear it for months together without suffering, provided only Nature be left to herself." But dysentery is by no means always harmless to infants, for in some epidemics this period of life has been visited with the greatest severity. Thus, Pfeilstücker reports of Würtemberg (1873-74) that the greatest mortality, 39 per cent., occurred at the age of one to seven years, and the least, 4 per cent., at the age of thirty-one to fifty years; {808} and Oesterlen says of England that dysentery causes 20 per cent. of deaths from all causes in the first year of life.

Nor does the prevalence of a greater number of cases necessarily imply a heavier mortality. For Bianchi reports of Rome that cases of dysentery constituted but 2.28 per cent. of all the admissions into the Ospedale di San Spirito in 1873, while in 1874 the percentage increased to 3.68; yet the mortality of 1873 was 17.02 per cent., while that of 1874 was but 9.09 per cent.

Complications on the part of the nervous system, the status typhosus, pyæmia, and great prostration, necessarily render the prognosis grave, yet even these cases are not necessarily fatal. Thus, Jules Aron reports from the epidemic at Joigny (1876) a case of recovery after complete paralysis of the sphincter ani. The recognition and discharge of an hepatic abscess relieves the patient from the dangers of this complication. Peritonitis alarmingly aggravates the prognosis, and perforation is almost of necessity fatal.

PROPHYLAXIS.--The improved sanitation of modern times has already diminished the frequency and mitigated the severity of epidemics of dysentery; and this fact, which is only an accidental observation as it were, gives the clue to the means of its further prevention.

The selection of proper sites for camping-grounds, barracks, and hospitals, the prevention of overcrowding in tenement-houses, ships, and jails, the regulation of sewage, the care for the food and drink, the observation of the strictest cleanliness by authoritative control,--all these are general measures which suggest themselves in the prophylaxis of this or any disease.

In the management of individual cases the first precaution is to prevent the dissemination of the disease. Whether it be really contagious or not, every case should be managed, as Bamberger suggests, as though it were contagious; and this protection of others secures for the individual patient the most favorable hygiene.

The bedding must be frequently changed; the windows kept open to secure free ventilation, which, in the light of existing knowledge, is the only true disinfectant; and all the furniture of the sick-room, especially including the receptacles for the discharges, must be kept perfectly clean. For this purpose the best purifier is very hot water. The temperature of the sick-chamber, if it be subject to regulation, should never be allowed to sink below or rise above 65-70° F.

The drinking-water should be secured, during an epidemic, from the purest possible source, and if good drinking-water cannot be had, what there is should be thoroughly boiled.

The discharges should properly be mixed with sawdust or some combustible substance and burned, or if this be impracticable should be buried in the soil a few feet below the surface, and not emptied into water-closets or privy-vaults used by others.

Such articles of food should be abjured as have a tendency to produce intestinal catarrh. So unripe fruits, vegetables which readily undergo fermentation--in short, all indigestible substances--should stand under ban. But no prohibition should be put upon ripe fruits or simple nutritious food of any kind.

Lastly, individuals should protect themselves from catching cold. The {809} researches of Pasteur have disclosed the fact that certain germs of disease will grow and multiply in the body of an animal whose temperature is reduced, when they would not increase without it.

TREATMENT.--The first requisite in the treatment of an individual case is perfect rest. Patients with even the lighter forms of catarrhal dysentery should observe the recumbent posture, and cases of more serious illness should be put to bed. Rest in bed, an exclusive diet of milk--which should always have been boiled--and the time of a few days is sufficient treatment for the mildest cases. Where there is objection to milk, meat-soups, with or without farinaceous matters, rice, barley, etc., may take its place.

A case which is somewhat more severe will require perhaps a light saline laxative--a Seidlitz powder, a dose of Rochelle salts or Epsom salts in broken doses--or a tablespoonful of castor oil or five to ten grains of calomel, to effect a cure. For the relief of the pain of the lighter cases nothing is equal to tincture of opium, of which five to ten drops every three or four hours in a tablespoonful of camphor-water acidulated with a few drops of nitric acid will generally suffice; or Dover's powder in broken doses, one to three grains, with five to fifteen grains of bismuth or soda, or both, is a good substitute for a change.

The successful treatment of dysentery in any form depends upon a recognition of the fact that the disease is local as to its seat, and is probably specific as to its cause. The anodynes relieve the effects, but the laxatives remove the cause. Consequently, the most rational treatment of the severer cases is the irrigation of the large intestine and the thorough flushing out of its contents. The use of clysters in the treatment of dysentery dates from the most ancient times, with the object, however, rather of medicating than washing out the bowel. O'Beirne (1834) and Hare (1849) were the authors of the irrigation treatment, which they executed by means of a long tube introduced into and beyond the sigmoid flexure. Since Hegar has recently shown how the whole tract of the large intestine can be thoroughly inundated and flushed with a common funnel and rectal tube, the practice has continually gained ground, until it is now admitted as the most valuable method of treatment. H. C. Wood of Philadelphia, and later Stephen Mackenzie of London, have reported a number of cases in which irrigation of the bowel with large injections medicated with nitrate of silver, drachm j-pint j, was attended with the most surprising results--sometimes but a single injection effecting a cure; and the writer of this article has reported one case almost in articulo mortis where complete cure followed the irrigation of the bowel--on three occasions with three pints of water containing three drachms of common alum. This case was all the more instructive from the fact that a relapse had occurred after very striking but only temporary relief had been obtained with the nitrate of silver, the alum having been substituted simply on the ground of expense.