[Diagnosis of epidemic gastroenteritis].

Epidemic gastroenteritis is a rather widespread disease, though as yet little known to medical practitioners. Its diagnosis is base on the correct evaluation of the complex of characteristics, both clinical and epidemiological; clinical characteristics include typical gastroenteritis with normal or subfebrile temperature, loud rumbling and the sounds of flowing liquid in the bowels, as well as slight catarrhal phenomena with peculiar granular formations on the surface of the mucous membrane of the soft palate and the arches; epidemiological characteristics include the non-explosive, diffuse character of morbidity, the absence of definite regularity in the occurrence of the disease among different age groups, increased morbidity among medical personnel an public service workers, the seasonal character of the infection (winter and spring), the absence of any influence of the factors commonly contributing to the mass spread of enteric diseases on the morbidity level, as well as the negative results of numerous bacteriological (virological) investigations made with the aim of isolating the known causative agents of enteric infections.