Zachary M Kilpatrick

SUBUNGUAL splinter hemorrhages are generally considered to be part of the clinical picture of bacterial endocarditis, but the fact that they are also seen in a wide variety of other conditions has been appreciated only recently.The association of splinter hemorrhages with bacterial endocarditis dates to 1920, when Sir Thomas Horder described "a minute petechia in the form of a vivid linear splash of red at the side of the bed of a finger nail" in a patient with bacterial endocarditis.1 ...

In ten patients, amebic colitis was mistakenly diagnosed as ulcerative colitis or Crohn disease of the colon because of the similarity of history, physical examination, and routine laboratory studies as well as findings on proctoscopic and barium enema examination. Multiple stool examinations failed to demonstrate ova or trophozoites of Entamoeba histolytica. Routine examinations of stools for ova and parasites are inadequate and even a meticulous search for amebas in fresh stool, in ...

HEPATIC functional impairment in infectious mononucleosis is nearly universal1,2 and histologic changes in the liver are regularly encountered.3-6 To this time, no study correlating the extent of altered structure and functional abnormalities has appeared. This study presents such a correlation and describes the findings which suggest that the degree of abnormality in certain liver-function tests in infectious mononucleosis is well correlated with the extent of accumulation of ...

Vascular disease may lead to ischemic damage to the colon which hiterto has been thought to be confined to the proximal and descending colon and to spare the distal sigmoid and rectum. Studies here report a syndrome clinically, roentgenographically, and histologically recognizable as spontaneous ischemic disease of the rectum. In older persons, abdominal pain, alteration of bowel function, and rectal bleeding together with (1) the sigmoidoscopic appearance of bizarre nodular polypoid or ...

Achalasia in parent and offspring has been documented for the first time. The familial occurrence of achalasia has been reviewed. The occurrence of this disorder in family groups permits speculation that genetic factors may play a role in the pathogenesis of achalasia.

Occult celiac disease was the cause of chronic iron deficiency anemia in two women who did not have clinically apparent malabsorption. There had been no response to oral administration of iron and neither had had abnormal blood loss. Iron deficiency anemia that is refractory to oral iron therapy may be due to celiac disease. Tests of intestinal absorption and biopsy of the small bowel are indicated.

About 50% of Meckel's diverticula contain heterotopic tissue of embryonic origin, most often gastric mucosa, the presence of which is the most frequent cause of symptoms such as the rectal bleeding with which a substantial number of patients present. But while it is often suspected, the anomaly too often cannot be precisely identified preoperatively. Technetium scanning with the gamma camera offers a solution to this diagnostic dilemma.