3 Anatomie pathologique, Paris, 1830-42.
4 Lehrb. d. Path. Anat., Wien, 1855-61.
5 Zeitschr. f. rat. Med., Bd. vii., 1849.
The best descriptions of cirrhosis of the stomach have been furnished by English writers, by most of whom it is properly regarded as an independent disease. Brinton6 first employed the names cirrhosis of the stomach and plastic linitis. Excellent descriptions of the disease have been given by Hodgkin, Budd, Brinton, Habershon, H. Jones, Wilks, Quain, and Smith.
6 Diseases of the Stomach.
While in former times cirrhosis of the stomach was confounded with cancer, in recent times it has not been separated by many from chronic catarrhal gastritis. In German systematic works the disease receives, as a rule, only passing mention in connection with chronic catarrhal gastritis.
ETIOLOGY.—Cirrhosis of the stomach is rare, but it is not so exceptional as to be without any clinical importance. I have met with three cases at post-mortem examination.
The disease is more frequent in men than in women. A considerable number of cases have occurred between thirty and forty years of age, but the greatest frequency is after forty. At an earlier age than twenty the disease is very rare.
The causation of cirrhosis of the stomach is obscure. Nearly all writers upon the subject have emphasized the abuse of alcohol as an important cause in this as in other diseases of the stomach. Intemperance cannot, however, be the only cause; and here, as elsewhere, it is not easy to say what importance is to be attached to it as an etiological factor. In only one of the three cases which I examined post-mortem could it be determined that the patient was an immoderate drinker, and in one case intemperance could be positively excluded. Other cases have been recorded in which the abuse of spirits could be positively excluded. In one of my cases syphilis existed, as was established by the presence of gummata in the liver. In some cases the disease has been attributed to cicatrization of a gastric ulcer. In a case reported by Snellen the disease followed an injury to the epigastric region.7
7 Canstatt's Jahresbericht, 1856, iii. 302.