EXPERIMENTALLY INDUCED INFECTIOUS HEPATITIS

Abstract
THE OCCURRENCE of anorexia, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain during the preicteric and early icteric phases of infectious hepatitis has suggested that involvement of the gastrointestinal tract may be an important feature of this disease. The fact that the etiologic agent of infectious hepatitis is eliminated in the stools of patients in the acute phase of the disease and may be transmitted experimentally by feeding such material to human volunteers adds supporting evidence to this concept.1More objective criteria have been afforded by the demonstration at autopsy of regional lymphadenopathy as well as edema and phlegmonous changes in the stomach and small and large bowel in fatal cases.2In an effort to demonstrate changes in the gastrointestinal tract during infectious hepatitis, certain roentgenologic and gastroscopic studies have been made. Pöschl3has reported alteration in the antral portion of the stomach and first part of the duodenum,