Severe diarrhoea in patients with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is usually a manifestation of gastrointestinal infection by a variety of organisms. We report a patient with low CD4 T celi counts who developed ulcerative colitis after amoebic dysentery. He subsequently developed acute ulcerative colitis with toxic dilatation while he was severely immunocompromised. He responded ...

Although it is highly unlikely that a disease can be definitively diagnosed from a study of the pH of the faeces alone, the present study has helped to dispel the past belief that the pH of faeces in acute amoebic dysentery is more likely to be acidic. Culture for other pathogenic organisms has not been done in the present series of cases, but the chances of the coincidence of bacillary dysente...

Sir ?I have read, with much interest, the paper entitled " Jail Stomatitis," by Dr. Nobin Chunder Dutt, in your issue of May last, and, as you have invited discussion, I venture to offer a few remarks on the subject, based upon an experience of several jails in the Punjab, during the past five years. Dr. Dutt describes a variety of conditions of the mouth under the head of stomatitis, and, for ...

Historical myths die hard: one such is of a supposed outbreak of scurvy—said by some to be the result of medical insouciance—at Millbank penitentiary in 1823. Thus, Sean McConville in his masterly account of prisons in the reform period writes: ‘‘The decision [to reduce the diet] was a major factor in the scurvy epidemic which followed shortly afterwards, causing at least thirty deaths’’. Other...

Reiter's disease is characterized by a clinical syndrome consisting of a primary abacterial urethritis of venereal origin, bilateral conjunctivitis, polyarthritis, frequently balanitis, and sometimes keratodermia blennorrhagica; cardiac and other manifestations have also been described.The itiology is unknown. There is an almost identical syndrome associated with the various types of dysentery ...

BACKGROUND Picralima nitida Stapf (Apocynaceae) is a medicinal plant used traditionally in Cameroon to cure various ailments such as gastrointestinal disorders and dysentery. This study reports the in vitro and in vivo anti-shigellosis activity of the methanol extract of this plant on rats. METHODS The antimicrobial activity of the extract against pathogenic strains was evaluated using the di...

BACKGROUND Psidium guajava L., Myrtaceae, is used widely in traditional medicine for the treatment of diarrhoea, dysentery, gastroenteritis, stomachaches, and indigestion. However, the effect of the leaf extract of P. guajava on the pathogenesis of infectious diarrhoea has not been studied. The present study evaluates the effect of a hot aqueous extract (decoction) of dried leaves of P. guajava...

Classification of enteritis presents many difilculties On this subject, Paterson (1933a) said, 'The more one studies the problem of the diarrhoeal diseae ofinfancy, the more complicated it appears ; this same writer (1944) divides gastro-enteritis into three main groups: infective, dietetic, and symptomatic. The first group, which is better called specific, is due to an infection by a known pat...