ACTIVIST & REV. JESSE JACKSON HOSPITALIZED

From The Chicago Tribune
AP Writer Don Babwin
September 4, 2008.

CHICAGO

Doctors at a Chicago hospital were conducting tests on the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Thursday, a day after the civil rights leader was admitted with what he called "severe stomach pains."

In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Jackson said he was feeling much better than when he was hospitalized on Wednesday, but he did not know when further tests might be completed and when he might be released from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Jackson said doctors have told him that he was suffering from viral gastroenteritis.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gastroenteritis is an inflammation of the stomach and small and large intestines and that viral gastroenteritis is an infection caused by a number of viruses. The CDC also says gastroenteritis is not a serious illness for most people.

The 66-year-old Jackson, a supporter of the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, was campaigning and doing voter registration work in Georgia earlier this week when he began to feel ill.

He said the work was very tiring and that doctors told him he may have become dehydrated, which led to the symptoms that prompted him to go the hospital.

A spokeswoman for Jackson's civil rights organization, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, said Jackson had returned to Chicago as scheduled this week, and that his symptoms did cause him to come home from Georgia earlier than expected.