Treatment of Acute Infantile Gastroenteritis Dehydration Acidosis with Ringer's Lactate and Glucose-Electrolyte Solution

Fifty patients hospitalized with severe gastroenteritis - dehydration with acidosis were investigated. The age average was 8 months with the range of 1-18 months. The amount of the Ringer's lactate solution given was as follows:1st hour : 30 ml/kg b.w.the following 7 hours: 70 ml/kg b.w. or 10 ml/kg b.w./hour.After 8 hours on parenteral treatment, the child was given oral solution, either glucose-electrolyte solution or milk formula in ¼ dilution. The mortality rate was 6% (3 out of 50 patients) i.e. one due to seizures suspected encephalitis, one due to potasium deficiency (K = 2.1 mEq/l) and the third due to dehydration itself because the child was admitted already in a moribund stage (subvinum vitae).

Distinct reovirus-like agents associated with acute infantile gastroenteritis

Human reovirus-like particles were found by electron microscopy in the stools of 25% of 71 infants and young children hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis in Mexico between December 1976 and April 1977. The virus was also identified by the electrophoresis patterns of its ribonucleic acid upon disruption of partially purified particles. This technique is as reliable as electron microscopy but less laborious, and could become a routine diagnostic procedure. The electrophoretic patterns of viral ribonucleic acid from different cases suggest that there are at least two different reovirus-like agents associated with infantile gastroenteritis.