Essay On Peritonitis

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Etiology
In layman’s term, peritonitis is the inflammation of the membrane lining the abdominal wall, the peritoneal cavity, and covering the abdominal organs. Peritonitis is characterized by the presence of infectious agents such as bacteria or fungi in the peritoneal cavity, rupture or perforation in the abdomen or as a complication resulting from other medical conditions. Peritonitis is infectious and may be idiopathic, which is when a disease arises spontaneously for an unknown cause. Peritonitis may be acute or chronic, septic or nonseptic, localized or generalized, or adhesive or exudative. In rare cases, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis results when the peritoneal cavity is infected by blood borne bacteria. Specific bacterial agents include gram-negative Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and gram-positive Streptococcus pneumoniae. Usually only a single organism is involved in the disease. The more common type of peritonitis, known as secondary peritonitis, occurs when the infection comes into the peritoneum through a perforation in the abdominal wall. Peritonitis has existed since the beginning of time. In ancient India, Mesopotamia and Egypt no progress was made in surgery as penetrating wounds of the abdomen were treated simply by cleaning the bowel, suturing holes and returning the bowel into the abdomen. Embalming did not improve the knowledge of anatomy and physiology and while many diseases were put into a system of nosology, peritonitis was not one of them. Progress in the knowledge of peritonitis was made by …show more content…

Primary peritonitis, which is characterized by an infection that spreads from the bloodstream and lymph nodules to the peritoneal cavity is rare as it occurs in less than 1% of all worldwide cases. Secondary peritonitis is much more common as the infection results from perforation in the abdominal

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