Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-04-07
Wartime
Developer
Of Dyspepsia
Most Of Nerves Lead
10 The Stomach
BY DIR. LOGAN CLENDENING

BY DIR. LOGAN CLENDENING
TT TAKES a lot OF courage on
L the part of the digestive tract
10 live through times like these.
In the war OF nerves, most of the
nerves go 10 the stomach.
This is called, in a scientific
phrase, intestinal fortitude - in
common phrase, it has a shorter
and even more scientific name.
We were all stomach when in
the paleozoic slime and we have
never quite gotten over that.
Whenever we are upset emo
tionally. il is DETECTED most deli
cately in the most primitive Of
our organs.
But besides nervous dyspepsia,
the digestive tract is so compli-
Gated that il is not surprising
that il gets out of whack on an
organic basis about as often as
any other part of the body.
Me h o d s of detecting and
making diagnosis of digestive
disturbances are greatly i'm
proved in these days.
Formerly we depended en-
tirely on the history of the
patients recital of his own
symptoms TO make a diagnosis
OF abdominal disease-and often
got into trouble.
THERE Is a story OF a young
l. druggist who came back to
his home town after his college
course TO find that his father had
allowed the family drug store to
run TO seed and was not getting
the prescription business from
the three best doctors in town.
So he concocted a diabolical
scheme and hired an actor 10 go
TO Doctors A, B and c success
sively.
To DR.. A he said that he had
discomfort in the pit Of his
stomach. relieved only by food
and alkaline solutions.
DIR. A examined the patient,
told him that he had a duodenal
ulcer and at the patients re-
quest wrote down the diagnosis
and signed his name 10 il.
To DR.. B he said that he had
discomfort under the right ribs
that sometimes became acute,
that radiated into the rig h {
shoulder and that sometimes he
had been jaundiced.
DR.. 3 examined him. told him
that he had gall stones, and as
requested wrote down the dag
nosis and signed his name 10 IT.
ITO DR.. G he said that he had
L a pain in the back that radi-
ated around into the groin and
into the front of the leg. DR.. c
examined him, said that he had
kidney stones, wrote down the
diagnosis and signed his name.
According 10 the story the
young druggist then took these
three damning pieces OF evil
dence 10 the doctors with pho
tograph OF the actor and said
that he would place the three
different diagnosis and the pho
tograph Of the man in his win
dow unless they would send him
their prescriptions.
According 10 the story IL all
turned out happily and they
complied with his request.
The point of the story is that
they had TO depend entirely on
the integrity of the patients
history in making their dag
noSls.
TODAY we have many other
Il means OF diagnosis; most i'm
portant Of these, the X-ray.
With this marvellous instru-
ment, we can feed the patient
meal which throw black
shadow on the X-ray plate.
When the stomach is filled up,
we herefore have a black
shadow which is the exact out
line of the stomach.
We can see the movements
that il makes. We can time the
emptying rate and compare that
with the normal. We can do the
same thing with the intestines.
Besides this. we can m k e
chemical examinations Of the Sc
cretions of the different parts OF
the digestive tract.
Lastly, we have electrically
lighted instruments. something
like periscopes. which can be
used to see the appearance Of
the inside of the esonhaglIs- the