Four cases of childhood Menetrier's disease are presented and their clinical and laboratory findings are compared with the other childhood cases reported in the literature. Children with Menetrier's disease usually present with abdominal pain or nausea and vomiting associated with peripheral edema, ascites, or pleural effusion; these symptoms are due to gastrointestinal protein loss and resultant hypoproteinemia. There is no evidence of urinary protein loss. The favorable clinical course as well as distinctive laboratory and roentgenologic findings distinguish this entity from other causes of these symptoms. Supportive therapy is normally all that is required since the symptoms resolve spontaneously in weeks to months. Surgery may be needed in rare cases of active gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

No abstract

ON the 15th of August, 1849, I was requested to visit Mrs. T-, a rather tall, spare woman, in the sixty-second year of her age, who was suffering from severe pain in the umbilical and hypogastric regions, with frequent retching and some vomiting. She had also a sense of fulness in the abdomen, flatulence, and constipation, with loaded tongue, but no peritoneal tenderness or fever. I learned that she had been eating indigestible food, and attributed the attack to that cause. She took a dose of calomel with opium, followed at intervals by a magnesian aperient draught, and had an antispasmodic and laxative enema. The sickness ceased, and the bowels were speedily and freely relieved; but the pain, to a less extent, recurred occasionally, and she had symptoms of indigestion for a few days, which were removed by nightly doses of compound extract of colocynth with conium, and a stomachic draught taken between meals.