Frequently it has been stated that the nature of chronic ulcerative colitis (thromboulcerative colitis) as it occurs during infancy and childhood, although the disease is basically the same as it is in later life, is prone to be more severe, that the outcome is more likely to be fatal and that a less satisfactory response of the patient to treatment occurs.1 It has been demonstrated that the opposite is true when this disease afflicts elderly persons or when persons experience symptoms of the disease late in life.
In 1919 Logan2 reported a series of 117 cases of chronic ulcerative colitis, and in 1923 one of us (Helmholz3) made the first report in the literature on the disease as it affects children. This report dealt with 5 cases. In 1924 Bargen's4 work helped to establish the disease as an entity. During the last two decades considerable information