Adults suffering from chronic enterocolitis should be kept upon a milk diet for several weeks. Fats and starches prove especially indigestible. Therefore, at first, farinaceous food must be withheld, or, if used at all, must be given sparingly. Some patients cannot tolerate a milk diet because the fat that it contains is not well digested and the sugar ferments. If it is employed, the result is increased discomfort and often more frequent stools. Milk is sometimes made more digestible and suitable for use by skimming or by diminishing its percentage of both cream and sugar. If it is pancreatinized, it also becomes more tolerable to the diseased and inactive organs.

When milk is not well digested and assimilated, the best results are gotten from an almost exclusively albuminous diet. Under such circumstances meat-juice and broths may be given, also scraped meat, beef meal, beef peptonoids, and somatose, albumen-water, and often raw, soft-boiled, or poached eggs, and sometimes egg lemonade. Usually Zwieback or pulled bread in small quantities is harmless and grateful. In mild cases stale bread may be permitted, and a small quantity of some cereal that does not contain wheat husks or indigestible matter. Soft-boiled rice, farina, and tapioca are the best of these. They must also be given if emaciation increases when an albuminous diet is used. Still, a strictly albuminous diet is not suitable for prolonged use nor is it often long needed. Just as milk is counterindicated when it sours, so is meat when it putrefies and makes fetid stools.

When improvement begins and the use of the simplest cereals has been shown to be possible, such articles of food as these may be tried with caution: minced beef, raw oysters, soft-cooked or raw eggs, boiled or broiled fish or creamed codfish, squab, breast of chicken, crackers, bread and milk, bread and butter, blanc mange, custards, and wine jellies.

It must not be forgotten, in these chronic cases as well as in the acute, that there is great danger of overfeeding. Relapses are extremely common and usually due to overfeeding or improper food.

When diarrhea seems thoroughly checked, such vegetables as baked potatoes, asparagus, spinach, stewed celery, and cauliflower may be tried. The following foods should be avoided: rich milk, green vegetables, raw acid fruits, dried fruits, nuts, shell-fish, pork, veal, foods prepared with rich gravies or very sweet sauces, coarse breads, pastries, and desserts in general.

If constipation follows diarrhea, it should be relieved, when possible, by massage and active exercise and by drinking water freely, especially before breakfast.

Chronic diarrhea in infants must be treated at first just as is the diarrhea of adults. Modified milk is especially useful. It is usually necessary to diminish the proteins and often also the fat and the sugar. Such a formula as this will generally agree well: Fat, 3 per cent.; sugar, 4; proteins, 1. To this lime-water must be added. The percentage of fats may be first increased, then the sugar, and last the proteins. When acid fermentation of the cream and sugar is considerable, producing sour stools and lumps of white, undigested fat (commonly called curds) in them, the percentage of cream and sugar must be lessened more than has been indicated. Modified milk may sometimes be strengthened advantageously by plasmon or somatose. But when putrid fermentation predominates, the percentage of proteins must be reduced. Under these circumstances peptonized milk often proves most useful.

It is occasionally necessary, as in acute cases, to discontinue the use of milk. Beef broth may be employed as a substitute, but not for long, as it often increases the number of bowel movements if it is used exclusively for many days. Infants will sometimes improve on an exclusive diet of albumen-water. It is rarely necessary to use it exclusively for more than a few days.

Sugars, starches, and fats are likely to disagree with these patients. Not infrequently a little cod-liver oil will be tolerated by babies when other fats are not. Inunctions of oil are often employed. A little is absorbed and assimilated in this way, and the massage of trunk and extremities necessitated by the rubbing helps also, but the abdomen is often too tender to permit of its manipulation.

During the first eighteen or twenty months of infancy the aim is, at first, to increase the quantity of nourishment given as improvement takes place, and later to get the patient little by little upon a milk and farinaceous diet such as is adapted to its age.

In the case of chronic enterocolitis, acute exacerbations are not uncommon. The dietetic and hygienic rules already prescribed for acute cases must then be enforced.

Water may usually be given as the patients desire it. When bowel movements are frequent and copious, enough should be allowed to allay thirst, but always in small quantities at a time.

Life in fresh, invigorating air does as much good in chronic cases as in acute - as much good to adults as to infants. It is best to protect the abdomen with a woolen band. When health is restored, a patient should accustom himself to a cold morning bath and brisk rub, which will render him less sensitive to sudden falls in temperature and to cold drafts.

In mucous disease or membranous enteritis the diet and regimen must be the same as for chronic enterocolitis and its acute exacerbations. Frequently all food must be prohibited for a few hours. If the stools contain fat lumps or undigested curds, milk should no longer be given or it must be modified. Broths may be substituted for it. Jacobi has recommended such a mixture as this for a substitute: five ounces of barley-water, one or two drams of brandy or whisky, the white of an egg, and a little salt and cane-sugar; a teaspoonful to be given every hour. It is quite palatable.

During convalescence or between attacks great care should be exercised to prevent overloading the stomach. It is best to vary food gradually and with watchful care.