Ileus
or ILIAC PASSION, a severe intestinal disease, characterized by violent griping pain, accompanied with retraction and spasms of the abdominal muscles, costiveness, and vomiting of fæcal matter. Among the most frequent causes of this disease are strangulated hernia, intussusception, or the retention of one part of the bowel within another, unnatural adhesions between adjacent folds of the intestines, inflammation, etc.