[Functional muscular abdominal distension--a case report].

The rare clinical picture of the functional muscular distension must be demarcated from organic changes which are connected with an increase of the abdominal volume such as intraabdominal tumours, accumulations of fluid or gatherings of gas or pregnancy. In this symptom a functional disturbance is concerned which appears in patients with vegetative lability or psychic peculiarities and by changes of tension of the musculature surrounding the abdominal space leads to the intermittent or chronic protrusion of the abdomen. By means of an anaesthesia the presence of a functional cause can be made evident: after injection of anaesthetics the protruding abdominal wall is subsiding. The knowledge of the picture of the disease saves long diagnostic ways which contribute to the fact to fix labile patients extremely to the observation of their abdomen and to favour the manifestation of a neurosis. The often unsatisfying therapeutic long-term effect is in contrast to the harmlessness of this symptom.