GASTROSCOPY IN ACUTE AND CHRONIC HEPATITIS

Recently in THE JOURNAL there appeared a report on gastroscopic observations of patients with infectious hepatitis.During the past two and one-half years we had occasion to employ gastroscopy in the course of diagnostic studies of some cases of chronic hepatitis because of gastric symptoms. For comparison, a number of cases of acute hepatitis were examined. A total of 43 cases of acute and chronic hepatitis were thus examined by gastroscopy. There were 23 cases of acute hepatitis and 20 of chronic hepatitis. In no case did gastric symptoms exist prior to the onset of hepatitis. X-ray examinations of stomach, duodenum and gallbladder were negative in all.ACUTE HEPATITISThe acute cases were diagnosed on the basis of characteristic clinical picture, enlarged and tender liver and jaundice. In the chronic cases there was obtained a history of previous attacks of acute hepatitis with persistent or recurrent symptoms of hepatitis, enlargement