This study was begun with the idea of examining data bearing on the so-called dysenteric type of pernicious malarial fever. The study naturally extended itself until it included besides the malarial fevers the six largest groups of disease met with in Panama, namely, acute dysentery, amebic dysentery, typhoid fever, pneumonia, pulmonary tuberculosis and chronic nephritis. The statistics that will be given cover the years 1908 and 1910, during which the records of the hospital are most complete.
Among eighty-eight cases of pernicious malarial fever that occurred in Colon Hospital from November, 1907, to May, 1910, thirteen patients had diarrhea, usually slight, and twenty patients were constipated. The remaining fifty-three patients showed no intestinal disturbance. All patients were given as routine 3 grains of calomel on the evening of admission and 2 ounces of a half saturated solution of magnesium sulphate the following morning. The slight diarrhea noted