ACUTE GASTKIC CATARRH. 4.99 



of the stomach, where the acid contents are collected together, and it 

 only attacks the pyloric portion, when, from the position of the body 

 on the right side, the contents have settled to that portion ; 2, by the 

 circumstance that it is also found in the bodies of children who showed 

 no signs of gastric disturbance during life, but who had taken milk, 

 sugar-water, or other easily-fermenting substances, during the last 

 hours of life ; 3, because, even in cases where the walls of the stomach 

 are found torn, and its contents have entered the abdominal cavity, 

 there have been no symptoms of peritonitis during life, nor have any 

 remains of it been found on autopsy ; finally, 4, another proof is the 

 above-mentioned experiments, where artificial softening was induced 

 in stomachs that had been removed from animals. 



(The cases where softening of the stomach has been found, while 

 that organ was empty, do not belong here. It has been attempted 

 to explain this by citing the digestive power of the gastric juice, and 

 asserting that there was a self-digestion of the stomach, and that the 

 gastric juice secreted shortly before death had digested the stomach 

 just as it would digest any other membranous tissue. It is, however, 

 improbable that gastric juice would be secreted into an empty stomach, 

 and it is possible that a decomposition of mucus (which also sets free 

 lactic acid) would have the same effect on the walls of the stomach as 

 fermenting ingesta do.) 



SYMPTOMS AND COURSE. We shall first speak of the symptoms 

 of acute gastric catarrh when it is accompanied by moderate fever, and 

 often constitutes only an ephemeral affection. This form, the most 

 frequent result of errors of diet, is usually called status gastricus, gas- 

 tricismus, gastrosis, " disordered stomach." 



Even the physiological process of digestion is accompanied by a 

 certain depression, sluggishness, and disinclination to bodily or mental 

 exertion ; and the hyperaemia and production of mucus, when increased 

 to acute catarrh, are accompanied by a general malaise and sick feel- 

 ing that seem out of proportion to the slight and evanescent disease. 

 The patients feel dull, are fretful, complain alternately of heat and 

 cold ; have a hot head, cold extremities, but particularly a pressing, 

 tormenting pain in the forehead, which extends toward the occiput ; 

 on stooping, they have flashes before their eyes, and feel as if theii 

 heads would burst. The affection of the mucous membrane of the 

 stomach causes a feeling of pressure and fulness, even when that organ 

 is empty ; the " pit of the stomach " is sensitive to pressure ; there is 

 loss of appetite, but increased thirst ; there is usually distaste for food, 

 and qualmishness. Besides these, there are symptoms caused by ab- 

 normal decomposition of the contents of the stomach ; gastric catarrh 

 is often the result of abnormal decomposition of the ingesta, and, on 



