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Case 3.—A boy, aged 9, suffering from symptoms that had
been put down to biliousness which commenced in
1921. He had been attending one of the London
Hospitals, but more recently had been attending one
nearer home as an out-patient and later on was an inpatient.
He was discharged on the 29th June, 1922,
nothing organically wrong having been found. His
attacks got worse and at last he was seen in one. I
was able to get a personal friend, Professor "X" to
see him. The three following letters best describe
result.
Letter to Professor "X":—
" I wonder if you would see this boy whom I
saw yesterday at ray Clinic. He is subject to
periodical attacks of pain of a very acute character
localized to a very small area in the left groin.
Some time after the onset of the attack, vomiting
commences and continues to the end of the attack.
The attacks sometimes last all day and at the end,
the boy is completely exhausted.
During the last attack which he had about a
fortnight ago, the pain was so severe, that the
mother describes the boy as "tearing his hair out."
There is no doubt about the genuiness of these
attacks, as my Assistant has seen him just at the
termination of one.
When I saw him yesterday, the boy had a
curious anxious expression, much as one sees in
certain cases of severe asthma or angina pectoris.
The cervical glands are slightly enlarged. There
is a history of periodic flatulent distension, but no
enlargement of the liver has been detected. I cannot
find anything abnormal in the abdomen. The
only thing that I could detect was that the
reflexes of the lower extremeties are extremely poor.