In diarrhœa there is no fever or tenesmus, or pain before the stools, as in dysentery.
The bowels are constipated—at times so much so as to amount to obstruction—or, again, diarrhoea and tenesmus may be present.
Blood mixed with mucus and tenesmus accompany inflammation low down.
The large watery stools and the absence of tenesmus mark the difference between diarrhoea and dysentery.
The tenesmus (cupiditas egerendi) is a more distressing, and certainly more distinctive, sign of dysentery.
If the disposition to tenesmus be troublesome, a small injection of starch and opium will afford relief.
Irritant poisons give rise to pain in the stomach and bowels, faintness and sickness, and purging with tenesmus.
A small quantity of this is passed with tenesmus at short intervals.
If the large intestine is involved, the diarrhoea is accompanied with tenesmus.
tenesmus, a sense of weight and of a body present in the bowel, are experienced.
1520s, from Latin tenesmos, from Greek tenesmos "straining," from teinein "to stretch" (see tenet).
tenesmus te·nes·mus (tə-něz'məs)
n.
A painful spasm of the anal sphincter accompanied by an urgent desire to evacuate the bowel or bladder and involuntary straining that results in the passing of little or no matter.
