Prenatal lesions of the pancreas.

In order to make the purpose of the experiments to be discussed below clearly understandable, it was thought necessary briefly to summarize the main results of our previous studies concerning the functional pathology of the pancreas. It has been many years since we first observed that in the first week of scarlet fever the activity of pancreatic enzymes in the duodenal juice becomes decreased and at the same time the level of both amylase and lipase is greatly increased in the blood. 1 After a week this shift characteristic of acute pancreatitis usually disappears. In some instances, however, the pancreatic dysfunction becomes permanent, similarly as after certain cases of mumps or other infectious fevers.* A short time after that observation we had occasion to become acquainted with the morphological basis of the dysfunction: In three patients who died of bacillary dysentery the pancreas presented a picture characterized by degeneration, variably