DISEASES OF THE GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT
Epidemic Nausea, Vomiting and Diarrhea (Viral or Viroid Dysentery?).
—Report is made146 of a widespread mild contagious disease characterized by symptoms of a deranged gastrointestinal tract. For several reasons the disease has not attracted much medical attention: First, like the common cold, it is mild and its victims are usually ambulatory; second, its manifestations are not so obvious as those of the cold, and, third, the symptoms, because of their nature, are usually not discussed in casual conversation. It is probably worldwide in distribution, and its mode of dissemination suggests the cause to be a filtrable agent which passes from person to person as in air-borne infections. In tests made on volunteers who inhaled filtrates of garglings and of stools, presumptive evidence was obtained that the causative agent is filtrable and is air-borne, but the experiments were made with fresh