Pathogenesis of Functional Bowel Disease

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

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2. Historical Perspectives of Functional Bowel Disease

   • Thomas P. Almy

   Pages 1-11

3. Role of Neural Control in Gastrointestinal Motility and Visceral Pain

   • Emeran A. Mayer, Helen Raybould

   Pages 13-35

4. Effects of Psychological Factors on Gastrointestinal Function

   • William E. Whitehead

   Pages 37-53

5. Central Control of Gastrointestinal Transit and Motility by Brain—Gut Peptides

   • Yvette Taché

   Pages 55-78

6. Effect of Diet on Intestinal Function and Dysfunction

   • Kenneth W. Heaton

   Pages 79-99

7. Disorders of Intestinal Motility Resulting from Drug Therapy

   • M. A. K. Khalil, W. G. Thompson

   Pages 101-112

8. Functional Diseases of the Esophagus

   • Joel E. Richter

   Pages 113-142

9. Functional Causes of Disturbed Gastric Function

   • Andre Dubois

   Pages 143-170

10. Functional Disorders of the Small Intestine

    • John E. Kellow, Sidney F. Phillips

    Pages 171-198

11. Mechanisms and Management of Chronic Constipation

    • James C. Reynolds

    Pages 199-225

12. Irritable Colon Syndrome

    • William J. Snape Jr.

    Pages 227-247

13. Association between Disturbances in Gastrointestinal Transit and Functional Bowel Disease

    • C. D. Lind, R. W. McCallum

    Pages 249-271

14. Abdominal Pain and Biliary Tract Dysmotility

    • Walter J. Hogan, Wylie J. Dodds, Joseph E. Geenen

    Pages 273-288

15. Disorders of the Anal Sphincters

    • N. W. Read, Wei Ming Sun

    Pages 289-313

16. Functional Bowel Disturbances in Childhood

    • Paul E. Hyman

    Pages 315-333

17. Surgical Approach to Functional Bowel Disease

    • Sean J. Mulvihill, Haile T. Debas

    Pages 335-355

18. Back Matter

    Pages 357-368

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In their second year in medical school, students begin to learn about the differences between "disease" and "illness." In their studies of pathology they learn to understand disease as pertubations of molecular biological events. And we clinicians can show disease to them by our scans, lay it out even on our genetic scrolls, and sometimes even point out the errant nucleotide. Disease satisfies them and us; at Yale, lectures on the gastrointestinal tract run from achalasia to proctitis. There is, alas, little mention of functional bowel disease or of the irritable or spastic colon, for that is not easy to show on hard copy. Functional bowel disease represents "illness," the response of the person to distress, to food, to the environment, and to the existential problems of living. In real life such matters are most important. Richard Cabot first found out at the Massachusetts General Hospital almost a century ago that 50% of the patients attending the outpatient clinic had "functional" complaints. The figure had grown to over 80% when the very same question was reexamined 60 years later.

• colon
• gastrointestinal tract
• hospital
• stress
• hepatology

• Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, USA

  William J. Snape

• University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

  William J. Snape

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