Reflections on Regional Ileitis, Twenty Years Later

It is now somewhat over 20 years since the original description of regional ileitis as a clinical and a pathological entity.1Sufficient time has elapsed to allow for the gathering of data on a large scale, for maturing thoughts and experiences, and for a more critical analysis of the various aspects of this disease. Originating with a description of 14 cases of ileitis involving only the terminal segment of the small bowel, our personal files now contain 562 cases of nonspecific granulomatous enteritis involving distal ileum, ileum and jejunum, duodenum, and probably (although rarely) the stomach. In the course of these 20 or more years, much interest has centered on the development of our concepts of benign inflammatory diseases of the intestinal tract. Ulcerative colitis alone had been described and was recognized in its distal or its universal type since the description in 1875 by Wilks. It was later