The Chemical Composition of Diarrheal as Compared With Normal Stools in Infants

It has been a matter of considerable surprise on going through medical literature to see how little has been written regarding the chemical composition of diarrheal as compared with normal stools. Stools of all varieties have been studied in many ways in great detail since the work of Uffelmann and Wegscheider about forty-five years ago. Numerous reports have been published of metabolism work which contain stool analyses made with reference to the different constituents, fat, nitrogen, ash, etc.; and scattered through these are found reports of isolated instances in which very loose stools have been studied, but, so far as we are aware, no attempt has been made to correlate the observations on diarrheal stools and compare them with those which were normal. The work done on diarrheal stools as such has been chiefly a study of the flora. It was with the belief that some new light might possibly