Word: ulcerous
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...facts from the Near East last week renewed an old medical quarrel. When Dr. Edward L. Turner of Nashville was practicing medicine in Beirut, some time ago, he noticed a curious thing: every year in the late autumn his stomach-ulcer patients got worse. Late autumn was the time of the orange harvest, and the people of Syria are great orange eaters. Hmm, said Dr. Turner...
...Turner knew, gastroenterologists do not agree on whether or not ulcer diets should contain orange juice. The juice contains citric acid only in harmless traces, but it might stimulate the stomach to produce a more than normal amount of hydrochloric acid. Because they feared hydrochloric acid, some doctors banned orange juice; others prescribed it to keep up the vitamin C intake. Ulcer patients without enough vitamin...
...subjects, took stomach samples after feeding. At other times they gave the same subjects equivalent amounts of 1) soft toast and tea; 2) rich milk. In all but two patients, the stomach acid averaged 75% higher after the orange juice than after the other diets. It looked as though ulcer patients should get their vitamin C from something else than orange juice. But the doctors were too cautious to say so definitely; they wanted still more facts...
Keynote speaker was a noted surgeon, Dr. Irvin Abell of Louisville. The division of labor, he said, is clear. Any ulcers which do not heal with rest and special diets must be dealt with by surgeons. As for surgery, he went on, most experts believe it does little good merely to snip out the ulcer and patch up the stomach or intestine. For the incorrigible stomach keeps on brewing its corrosive acid. Most authorities hold that the best procedure is to cut out "three-fourths to four-fifths of the stomach." Since the stomach is primarily a churn...
Last week the American Journal of Digestive Diseases brought into the open a bitter dispute of long standing between physicians and surgeons. Ulcers of the stomach, most doctors believe, are caused by too much acid in the digestive juices. Too much acid corrodes the stomach lining at sensitive points, leaving a raw wound. But why some people have a constant gush of acid, instead of a gentle trickle at mealtime, is a mystery to doctors. Certain it is that tobacco and alcohol do a delicate stomach no good. Many authorities hold that ulcers are the fruits of temperament, for only...