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The outstanding early symptom of radiation injury of the intestine is diarrhea, mild to severe in degree. Later manifestations are pain, demonstrable ulceration and stricture formation with partial or complete obstruction. The early lesions, located usually on the anterior wall of the rectum and rectosigmoid, are characterized by an edematous friable mucous membrane. Later ulceration, with a grayish white slough, occurs at the level of the cervix. In time perirectal fibrosis resembling a "frozen" pelvis may develop and result in obstruction. In the severe injuries with stenosis, hemorrhage or persistent severe pain, temporary or permanent colostomy may be required with or without resection of the bowel. Intractable pain may be treated by colostomy and resection of the afferent nerve supply to the rectum. The ideal therapy is, of course, prophylactic, the avoidance of radiation injury. Whether or not it is possible by attention to the details of technic to administer effective carcinocidal doses of irradiation without occasional severe injury to adjacent normal tissue such as the rectum seems questionable at present.

Hodgkin's disease is not exclusively a disease of the lymphatic system. Involvement of every organ system including the skeleton has been reported. The present discussion of Hodgkin's disease in bone is based on a review of the literature and a study of 94 previously unreported cases from the Veterans Administration Research Hospital, Chicago, and the Evanston Hospital (Evanston, Ill.) of which 11 showed osseous involvement. Askanazy (2) described the pathologic aspects of osseous involvement in 1920, some twenty years after the clear definition of Hodgkin's disease as an entity by Reed and Sternberg. Grossman and Weis (6) first recorded the radiographic features of the bony lesions in 1922. Incidence The reported incidence of Hodgkin's disease in bone varies widely with the diagnostic criteria. A distinction must be made between medullary and cortical lesions. In the spongiosa the disease may be widespread without giving rise to symptoms or radiographic signs. The true incidence cannot be determined beca...