That the gastro-intestinal tract of patients with chronic arthritis is abnormal in some way has long been assumed. Dietary regimens of all sorts have been proposed to correct faulty nutrition. Recent work of a clinical and experimental nature by A. A. Fletcher in Canada, R. McCarrison in England and R. Pemberton in the United States shows rather definitely that these people do best when their intake of vitamins is increased and their intake of carbohydrate reduced. Frequently the colon has been accused of acting as a focus of infection, to eradicate which it has been cleansed by vigorous catharsis or irrigation or by changing its bacterial flora, or it has been removed surgically.
If the intestinal tract is pathologic in any important degree, functionally or anatomically, it would seem that the feces, which are the result of the processes of digestion, absorption and motility, should contain some evidence of that