Over the past half century, the entity known as chronic nonspecific diarrhea of childhood or toddler's diarrhea, has followed a path from case descriptions to disease and finally, within the past 10 years, to a defined functional disorder. Chronic nonspecific diarrhea of childhood was originally thought to be part of the 'celiac syndrome'. As Davidson and Wasserman [1] noted in their seminal paper published in the Journal of Pediatrics in December of 1966, the pioneering pediatric gastroenterologists of the time, had defined a number of specific disorders within what was then called the 'celiac syndrome', including gluten-induced enteropathy, disaccharidase deficiencies, lympangiectasia and abetalipoproteinemia. Chronic nonspecific diarrhea was the general term within that syndrome given to those children with persistent diarrhea where no cause could be identified. Anderson [2] felt that chronic nonspecific diarrhea was a result of starch intolerance and advocated a high-protein, low-fat, low-starch diet.
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