Peripheral and autonomic nerve involvement in primary amyloidosis associated with uncontrollable diarrhoea and steatorrhoea

A patient with primary amyloidosis and uncontrollable diarrhoea and steatorrhoea is described. At necropsy, there was a striking degree of amyloid infiltration in the spinal nerves, dorsal nerve roots and autonomic nerves and ganglia. The relationship of the changes in the nervous system to the gastrointestinal disturbances is expounded, and the hypothesis advanced that the most important factor in causing the diarrhoea and steatorrhoea was incoordination of intestinal activity from degeneration of the autonomic nervous system supplying the intestine.