Hemorrhage into the pancreas has been reported by the leading authorities. F. W. Draper, of Boston, reported that in four thousand autopsies he met with nineteen cases, in half of which no other disease was found. At this point I wish to state that that is one of the failures of postmortems and autopsies. They show organic disease, for they cannot show a functional disease, even if it is pronounced. Such examinations give no clue whatever to causation, They give no hint of perverted nutrition, and many of the lighter forms of organic derangement that may be the real cause of death; hence the fact that one-half of the subjects met with in the autopsies reported by Professor Draper presented no other cause for death than hemorrhage into the pancreas does not prove that there were no other causes; and post-mortems fail to reveal any cause of the hemorrhage into the pancreas. Those who inquire into the cause of death by autopsic examinations really find nothing except the effects of long-existing derangements in nutrition, caused by toxin poisoning. This being true, it is safe to give, as the principal etiological factor in the development of diseases of the pancreatic gland, any cause that deranges digestion and nutrition.

Treatment

The treatment should be preventive; for, after the disease is once established, there is no cure. Palliation is all that can be given. Just what the palliation should be depends upon the necessities of the case.