The Irritable Bowel Syndrome

In 1849, Cumming1 said of the irritable bowel syndrome, “The bowels are at one time constipated, another lax, in the same person. How the disease has two such different symptoms I do not profess to explain.” Over the years, the unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms of the irritable bowel syndrome have been described in various terms, including mucous colitis, spastic colitis, nervous colon, and irritable colon. The irritable bowel syndrome and nonulcer dyspepsia are the most common functional gastrointestinal disorders.The irritable bowel syndrome is defined on the basis of the recently modified Rome criteria as the presence for at least 12 . . .