A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 2

by Unknown

² De partium mortis et sympt., lib. vi. p. 277.

³ Specimen inaugurale de morbo oesophagi inflammatorie, Lugd. Batav., 1774.

⁴ De curandis hominem morbis, Epitome prælectionibus academicis dicata, Mannheim, Stuttgardt, and Vienna, 1792-1820.

⁵ Praxeous medica præcepta universa, Lipsiæ, 1826-32.

⁶ Klinik der Oesophaguskrankheiten, Erlangen, 1871.

⁷ Vorlesungen über specielle Pathologie und Therapie, Erlangen, 1872; Englished in abstract by the writer in Philada. Med. Times, 1872.

⁸ Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie, 1877; English translation, New York, 1878, vol. viii.

⁹ Dictionnaire de Médecine et de Chirurgie pratiques, Paris, 1877, vol. xxiv.

¹⁰ Dict. Encyclopediques des Sciences médicales, Paris, 1880, vol. xiv.

ETIOLOGY.—Acute oesophagitis is quite a rare disease. It occurs idiopathically, deuteropathically, and traumatically—traumatically far the most frequently, and idiopathically least frequently. It is doubtful whether any special predisposing causes of oesophagitis can be indicated. Nevertheless, infancy has been so cited by some authors (Mondière, Billard, Behier, and Steffan). Slight idiopathic catarrhal—or rather erythematous—oesophagitis occasionally ensues in the adult from sudden or prolonged exposure to cold and moisture, and under such circumstances may sometimes be regarded as rheumatic in origin, subsiding after a few hours' continuance, to be immediately succeeded by manifestations of articular rheumatism, acute or subacute, as in some analogous examples of rheumatic pharyngitis. Exceptionally, severe oesophagitis may follow a simple cold (Noveene, cited by Bernheim), or presents as an extension of sore throat, the result of cold (Graves¹¹). It is induced also by the habitual use of very hot drinks and food, and occasionally by the opposite extremes, the use of very cold articles of food and drink (Mondière, Bourguet, Hamburger). The abuse of tobacco and alcohol is alleged as quite a frequent cause of mild oesophagitis, usually occurring, however, in association with pharyngitis from the same causes.