Disorders of Fat Absorption

I have often been asked how I can keep to so narrow a field as steatorrhoea over a period of years, and my answer has always been that there are so many inviting problems in this field; my main difficulty is really one of confining my energies to a few of them. For instance, there is a wide variety of clinical conditions in which steatorrhoea is seen, often present only as part of a syndrome of generalized malabsorption, avitaminosis and malnutrition, in which many metabolic processes in the body may be upset. In Table I are listed several of these conditions, but this list is by no means all-inclusive as there are many other illnesses, such as Crohn’s disease or Whipple’s disease in which steatorrhoea is often also present.