The common bacterial infections of the digestive tract and the intoxications arising from them / by C.A. Herter.

  • Herter, Christian Archibald, 1865-1910.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The common bacterial infections of the digestive tract and the intoxications arising from them / by C.A. Herter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    that can be suggested by competent medical men, the question of surgical interference may arise. The past ten years have recorded a very large number of surgical triumphs in connection with the human digestive tract. Unfortunately in a majority of the instances of disease successfully reheved by surgical methods Uttle or nothing is known of the bacterial conditions in the digestive tract and what modifications they may have undergone as a result of treatment. There can be no doubt, how- ever, that in some of the cases that have been success- fully subjected to operation a part at least of the im- provement has come about through the mitigation of putrefactive processes in the large intestine. It is, I think, extremely desirable that much closer attention should be given to the study of cases from the bacterial stand- point than has ever been the case, for the knowledge which must surely be accumulated in this way must prove extremely helpful in deciding what shall be done with certain patients suffering from chronic anaerobic infections of a severe type. An operation which has been very often practiced in one or another form is that of gastro-enterostomy. In cases of dilatation of the stomach which have resisted ordinary forms of treatment, ad- mirable results have many times been obtained in the relief of a great variety of digestive disturbances. It seems highly probable that the relief afforded m these cases has been due in most instances m part at least to the greatly improved conditions of bacterial activity which followed the removal of a source of stagnation and putrefaction in the upper part of the digestive tract.