rice water stool

rice water stool

Clear, watery stools with a vaguely fishy odor and flecks of mucus, likened to water from boiled rice, an appearance classically seen in cholera; cholera stool is low in protein and isotonic with the plasma, and thus a 'secretory' diarrhea in which adenylate cyclase is locked in an 'on' position by enterotoxins produced by Vibrio cholerae and some strains of E coli; at early postmortem examination, the intestines are stiff and non-distensible and likened to 'iron rods, a finding due to the antemortem metabolic acidosis and ↓ K+. See Cholera cot.