The diarrhœal diseases constitute a very large percentage of the diseases of infancy, and yet, in the majority of the text-books, they are discussed in the routine manner of years ago.
The recent advances in bacteriology and chemistry have not failed to throw much light upon the etiology and pathology of these diseases, and it is my desire in this course to consider them from a modern standpoint.
It is customary to speak of summer diarrhœa. I avoid the term diarrhœa, and use instead the term summer complaint. Summer complaint includes not only the diarrhœal forms of these diseases, but those forms characterized by constipation, and I hope to show you that many cases which are truly cases of summer complaint, with all the symptoms and the unfortunate results of summer complaint, are characterized from beginning to end by the symptom, constipation. The term summer complaint, therefore, is in this