Primary tuberculosis of the bowel is rare. When it does occur, it is more commonly found in young people under 18 than in older people; and is due, we assume, to ingestion of milk, butter or meat from tuberculous cows. In adults we usually find it secondary to a focus in the lungs or the bronchial glands. There are other forms of bowel tuberculosis, such as the miliary and the hyperplastic conditions.
The hyperplastic results from an attenuated infection of the tubercle bacilli, which causes proliferation of connective tissue, with tumor formation. One may state, as a general rule, that the tumor formation is inversely proportionate to the virulence of the organism. This form is usually found in the cecum and sigmoid. My own observations lead me to the conclusion that the appendix is first involved, later extending to the cecum.
I have seen five instances of this type of