A Family History of Uterine and Gastro-intestinal Cancer

JUVENILE DIARRHOEAMEDICAL OURNAL 341 virus enteritis described by Gordon (1954).Its more general recognition might protect some infants from the misapplication of antibacterial drugs, which appear to be ineffective in treatment.Our experience has been that sulphonamides often provoke vomiting, but seldom control the diarrhoea.The summer incidence of diarrhoea, as represented by the numbers of stool specimens sent to the laboratory, was lower than that in winter.Epidemic steatorrhoea was responsible for many winter cases, and such cases were often part of a household outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea.Only salmonellae and E. coli 0 26 showed a summer increase in prevalence, perhaps representing food-borne infection, since these organisms and 0 114 have been found in animal infections (0rskov, 1951; Charter, 1956).Bacillary dysentery accounted for only 11.1 ,% of all cases of diarrhoea.This and the low incidence of salmonella infection corresponds with the experience of Boardman, Cassel, and Kahn (1955), who studied 200 African children, but contrasts with the view put by Felsen (1945) that most cases of diarrhoea were demonstrably due to shigellosis.During and after epidemics shigellae may predominate temporarily, but any aetiological picture must alter as circumstances change.Summary Faeces were examined from 1,135 children aged up to 4 years within five days of the onset of a diarrhoea] illness.Excess fat globules were found in 13.1 % of these cases, and the significance of the finding is dis- cussed.Sh. sonnei was found in 11.1 0%, Salmonella species in 3.2%, and serological types of E. coli in 8%.The incidence of the latter and of Proteus species was very much higher in those under the age of 2 years.Diarrhoea was more common in winter than in summer months, and affected more boys than girls.We are grateful to the several laboratories which have carried out fat analyses for us.Much of the bacteriological technical work was carried out with great care and accuracy by Mr. J. H.