3^ QUATERCENTENARY STUDIES IN PATHOLOGY 



There are many other diseases which in all likelihood are conferred 

 through the intermediation of the intestine. Thus Dr. W. Hunter, of 

 Hong-Kong (A Research into Epidemic and Epizootic Plague^ Hong- 

 Kong, 1904) has been led by his researches to believe that in the case 

 of Plague the theory of infection through the skin has been vastly 

 exaggerated, and that a much more likely channel of contagion is the 

 intestine. His observations are supported by Simpson's previous 

 experiments. 



Lastly, may it not be the case that a great many of the exanthemata 

 are in reality intestinal diseases ? May it not be that the intestine is the 

 portal through which the respective poisons of these gain entrance to 

 the system ? Scarlet fever seems to me to be a case in point, for not 

 only is there a lesion of the fauces in this disease which might quite 

 well be a manifestation of a poison absorbed by the lymphoid tissue 

 in that neighbourhood, but we also know that one of the commonest 

 means of transmitting the disease is through contaminated articles 

 of diet. 



All these considerations go to demonstrate how vastly important the 

 part played by the alimentary canal in the propagation of contagious 

 and infectious diseases may be, and of the necessity there is for a more 

 thorough knowledge of the whole matter. It is a field of inquiry which 

 has been greatly neglected, unless in the case of those diseases which are 

 manifestly intestinal in the fact of their causing some gross anatomical 

 lesion. I would enter a plea for the more thorough investigation of 

 those diseases whose pathology at present is unexplained, which do not 

 leave any such residuum, and which, heretofore, have not been suspected 

 to be of intestinal origin. 



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