Infantile Diarrhœa

Sir,?In the course of my private practice I occasionally found that cases of infantile diarrhoea were often due to some fault in the milk of the mother's breast. There is a common belief among the rural people that infantile diarrhoea is due either to the seasonal wind or to the milk of the mother or to both. Investigation in a number of cases revealed that in some cases the secretion of milk was excessive, the mother apparently remaining perfectly healthy. The first mother whom I treated instead of the baby for its diarrhoea had anjemia and some constipation and a saline purgative and iron brought about a magic cure of the diarrhoea. Subsequently I tried the same trick in similar cases, all with success, except those with helminth, giardia or E. histolytica. Some infants required sulphaguanidine. Cases that responded on treating the mother had simple diarrhoea : the stool? normal in colour, reaction?acidic, consistency?liquid to semi-liquid, number of motions?variable. Sometimes the diarrhoea was associated with tympanites of varying degrees. Would you very kindly let me know the aitiology and pathology of the mother's condition ? Yours sincerely, H. THAKURIA, b.a., l.m.p. Tihu, Assam.