342 ENDOCRINE GLANDS 



of Loeper). The close bonds which unite the nervous 

 system of the intestines and the coeliac plexus, allow us to 

 believe that an entero neuritis can propagate in the ab- 

 dominal nerves and the solar plexus and give rise to 

 coeliac alterations which explain the solar neuralgias, some- 

 times persisting after infectious lesions of the intestines. 



7. TUBERCULOSIS. Mucous membranous entero coli- 

 tis, frequent in tuberculous individuals, the enteritis and 

 tuberculous peritonitis with mesenteric adenopathy, the 

 lesions of the suprarenals, accompanied by caseated or 

 sclerous perisuprarenalitis, compress and irritate the 

 branches of the sympathetic. At autopsy there is noticed, 

 depending on the case, either tuberculous lesions of the 

 solar plexus, or ordinary inflammatory lesions with ad- 

 hesions to the neighboring organs. The nerves of the 

 solar plexus can also fix toxins and even tubercle bacilli 

 and the coelialgia has then a toxic neuritis or a bacil- 

 lary cause. 



8. GENERAL Toxic INFECTIONS. The solar plexus 

 reacts to toxic infections as do other tissues. In the course 

 of general infections, pneumonia, small pox, streptococcus 

 and typhoid septicemia lesions occur, the nature of which 

 vary with the duration of the disease : degenerative lesions 

 of the nerve cells in virulent infections; nodular lesions 

 (vascular dilatation and leucocytic infiltrations) in sub- 

 acute infections, sclerous lesions in the slower forms. 



The solar plexus follows the general anatomical and 

 pathological rules. Experimentation reproduces these 

 different types of anatomical disturbances, either through 

 poisons, such as, the diphtheria toxin, by means of 

 mechanical or chemical agents, or as the result of bacte- 

 rial infections (colon bacillus, typhoid bacillus, strepto- 

 coccus) . (Laignel-Lavastine) . 



It is thus that a certain number of entero neuroses 



