dysentery

[Gr. dysenteria =a bowel complaint, from dys bad, ill, and enteron, pl. entera = the bowels, from entos =within.] Med .: A febrile, infectious, tropical disease, not common in this country. It may be acute or chronic, or again complex, and is very intractable and highly dangerous. It is seated in the large intestines, the lower part of the bowel, but sometimes extends upward into the small intestine above the ileo-colic valve. Dysentery is accompanied by straining, and scanty mucous and bloody stools, containing little or no fæces. The most frequent complication is with the liver and disease of the kidney. There is feverishne throughout, dry skin, furred tongue, thirst, sleeple ne , quick pulse, despondency, and so forth, slow convalescence, rarely complete, leaving the patient frequently a complete wreck. Ipecacuanha is the chief remedy, especially in the acute cases; opium is more useful in the chronic stage, with warm baths and careful regimen. In the scor shorter form dyne , though not fashioned according butic form, the Bael fruit is the best remedy. Dys- to strict rules of etymology, will probably be genentery usually commences with griping diarrhoea erally preferred in this country. Bearing in mind and excruciating tormina, shooting or cutting that it is desirable to construct a system with a pains, and leaves behind tenesmus, or the exhaust- view to its becoming international, we think that ing sensation that there is still something in the the termination of the word should for the present bowel to pa . In favorable cases recovery may remain an open question. But we would earnestly take place in from three to four weeks, but death request that whichever form of the word be emsometimes occurs in ten or twelve days, or the case ployed, its meaning be strictly limited to the unit of force of the C. G. S. system that is to say, the force which, acting upon a gramme of matter for a second, generates a velocity of a centimeter per second." [DYNAM.] dys, pref . [Gr. dys =ill, bad; cogn. with Sansc. dus-, dur-; Goth. tus- , tuz-; O. H. Ger. zur Ger. zer-.] An inseparable prefix, denoting ill, bad, unlucky, hard, .