In a previous paper1 we emphasized the importance of nutritional disturbances in the production of anemia in patients with chronic dysentery. In studying further a number of these patients, we were impressed by the similarity between many of the clinical features observed and those which are said to be characteristic of pernicious anemia. In this paper, we present our clinical observations and discuss the cause and treatment of the anemia encountered in a group of sixteen patients.
METHODS OF STUDY
All of the patients were studied while resident in the Peiping Union Medical College Hospital. The diagnosis of chronic dysentery was made on a basis of the clinical history, including the course of the disease, the observation of characteristic ulcers in the colon on sigmoidoscopic examination and from cultivating dysentery bacilli from the stools. The red blood cells were counted in the usual way, and the hemoglobin content of the