Unusual Skin Lesions in a Patient with Diarrhea

  • Scott Miller
  • Fred Thomas
Chapter
Part of the Contemporary Internal Medicine book series (COIM, volume 3)

Abstract

According to Thomas Jefferson, “The disorders of the human body and the exanthems indicating them are as various as the elements of which it is composed.” Nowhere in medicine is this more true than in diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. Diseases of the skin and gastrointestinal tract do not necessarily occur together by mere coincidence. Rather, they may be manifestations of the same entity, or may occur as a consequence of one another. It is an irony of our medical era that, in spite of the fact that the skin is the most observable, readily accessible, easily invadable “window” to the body, physicians frequently fail to see the clues it provides to gastrointestinal diseases. Indeed, the following case illustrates how nearsighted we are in this respect, for rather than providing a reflection of the patient’s underlying disease, her skin lesions only served as a draperylike barrier to those initially caring for her.

Keywords

Inflammatory Bowel Disease Ulcerative Colitis Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis Pyoderma Gangrenosum Extraintestinal Manifestation 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1991

Authors and Affiliations

  • Scott Miller
  • Fred Thomas

There are no affiliations available

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