OLITIS--INFLAMMATORY DIARRHEA

Cause.--Any cause which has been mentioned as a cause of ordinary
diarrhea may result in this disease. It may occur at any time of the
year and at any age. It may follow the infectious diseases. It may
follow any other disease of the intestines.

Symptoms.--It may begin like an ordinary attack of acute intestinal
indigestion. There is usually vomiting, fever, pain, and frequent yellow
or green stools. The passages may be blood-stained and there may be
little or much mucus. The stools at the beginning have no odor as a
rule. The bowels move very frequently, often with little or nothing to
pass. There may be pain with each movement. The blood may disappear in a
few days, but the mucus remains, often in large quantity in each stool.

At the beginning the fever is high, but it soon falls and remains low
during the attack. The child loses weight, is irritable, has no
appetite, and looks and acts sick. When the attack is over these
children do not gain their strength as readily as we would like;
recovery is slow.

The acute symptoms usually last about one week, after this time the
child begins to recover, but the process is a tedious one and one in
which much care has to be exercised. It is an encouraging sign to note
the disappearance of the blood in the stools and the return of the
movements to the normal brown color. When these favorable signs are
wanting the bowel is probably ulcerated and it will take a much longer
time to return to normal and to be free from blood and mucus.

The above is the ordinary form of this disease and it ends in recovery
as a rule. There is a more severe form, however, which differs from the
above in the following way:

The fever is high and remains high; the stools are more frequent and
there is more blood and more mucus in them; the child is much more
irritable and is more profoundly sick. Death may occur at any time from
the second day. If the little patient survives, the return to health is
a very slow process; it often takes months and frequently years before a
reasonable degree of strength is regained. Relapses are common, and
they are very difficult to treat and care for. In some cases the child
never wholly regains its former strength.

There are children who have been the victims of other intestinal
diseases or conditions who develop colitis. The colitis in these cases
may come on suddenly with vomiting and high fever, or it begins slowly,
with no