One thing should be mentioned, in conclusion, as an important item in the treatment—namely, patience. Chronic gastric catarrh, it should be remembered, is essentially a chronic disease, and time becomes an important element in its cure.

SIMPLE ULCER OF THE STOMACH.

DEFINITION.—Simple ulcer of the stomach is usually round or oval. When of recent formation it has smooth, clean-cut, or rounded borders, without evidence of acute inflammation in its floor or in its borders. When of long duration it usually has thickened and indurated margins. The formation of the ulcer is usually attributed, in part at least, to a disturbance in nutrition and to a subsequent solution by the gastric juice of a circumscribed part of the wall of the stomach. The ulcer may be latent in its course, but it is generally characterized by one or more of the following symptoms: pain, vomiting, dyspepsia, hemorrhage from the stomach, and loss of flesh and strength. It ends frequently in recovery, but it may end in death by perforation of the stomach, by hemorrhage, or by gradual exhaustion.

SYNONYMS.—The following epithets have been employed to designate this form of ulcer: simple, chronic, round, perforating, corrosive, digestive, peptic; ulcus ventriculi simplex, s. chronicum, s. rotundum, s. perforans, s. corrosivum, s. ex digestione, s. pepticum.

HISTORY.—It is only since the description of gastric ulcer by Cruveilhier in the year 1830 that especial attention has been paid to this disease.

In the writings of the ancients only vague and doubtful references to ulcer of the stomach are found (Galen, Celsus). It is probable that cases of this disease were described under such names as passio cardiaca, gastrodynia, hæmatemesis, and melæna.

After the revival of medicine in the sixteenth century, as post-mortem examination of human bodies was made with greater frequency, the existence of ulcers and of cicatrices in the stomach could not escape attention. But only isolated and curious observations of gastric ulcer are recorded up to near the end of the eighteenth century. One of the earliest recorded unmistakable cases of perforating ulcer was observed by John Bauhin, and is described in the Sepulchretum of Bonetus, published in 1679. Other cases belonging to this period were described by Donatus, Courtial, Littré, Schenck, and Margagni.¹

¹ References to these and to other cases may be found in Lebert's Krankheiten des Magens, Tübingen, 1878, p. 180 et seq.

To Matthew Baillie unquestionably belongs the credit of having first accurately described, in 1793, the anatomical peculiarities of simple gastric ulcer.² At a later date he published three good engravings of this disease.³ Baillie's concise and admirable description of the morbid anatomy of gastric ulcer was unaccompanied by clinical data, and seems to have had little or no influence in directing increased attention to this disease.

² The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, London, 1793, p. 87.

³ A Series of Engravings, accompanied with Explanations, etc., London, 1799.

A valuable account of the symptoms of gastric ulcer was given by John Abercrombie in 1824.⁴ Nearly all of the symptoms now recognized as belonging to this affection may be found in his article. He knew the latent causes of the disease, the great diversity of symptoms in different cases, and the modes of death by hemorrhage, by perforation, and by asthenia. He regarded ulcer simply as a localized chronic inflammation of the stomach, and did not distinguish carefully between simple and cancerous ulceration.

⁴ "Contributions to the Pathology of the Stomach, the Pancreas, and the Spleen," Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ., vol. xxi. p. 1, Jan. 1, 1824. See also, by the same author, Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of the Stomach, etc.—an excellent work which passed through several editions.

Cruveilhier,⁵ in the first volume of his great work on Pathological Anatomy, published between the years 1829 and 1835, for the first time clearly distinguished ulcer of the stomach from cancer of the stomach and from ordinary gastritis. He gave an authoritative and full description of gastric ulcer from the anatomical, the clinical, and the therapeutical points of view.

⁵ J. Cruveilhier, Anatomie pathologique du Corps humain, tome i., Paris, 1829-35, livr. x. and livr. xx.; and tome ii., Paris, 1835-42, livr. xxx. and livr. xxxi.

Next to Cruveilhier, Rokitansky has had the greatest influence upon the modern conception of gastric ulcer. In 1839 this pathologist gave a description of the disease based upon an analysis of 79 cases.⁶ The anatomical part of his description has served as the model for all subsequent writers upon this subject.

⁶ Rokitansky, Oesterreich. med. Jahrb., 1839, Bd. xviii. (abstract in Schmidt's Jahrb., Bd. 25, p. 40).

Since the ushering in by Cruveilhier and by Rokitansky of the modern era in the history of gastric ulcer, medical literature abounds in articles upon this disease. But it cannot be said that the importance of these works is at all commensurate with their number or that they have added very materially to the classical descriptions given by Cruveilhier and by Rokitansky. Perhaps most worthy of mention of the works of this later era are the article by Jaksch relating to symptomatology and diagnosis, that of Virchow pertaining to etiology, the statistical analyses by Brinton, and the contributions to the treatment of the disease by Ziemssen and by Leube.⁷ In 1860, Ludwig Müller published an extensive monograph upon gastric ulcer.⁸

⁷ Jaksch, Prager Vierteljahrschr., Bd. 3, 1844; Virchow, Arch. f. path. Anat., Bd. v. p. 362, 1853, and A. Beer, "Aus dem path. anatom., Curse des Prof. R. Virchow in Berlin, Das einfache duodenische (corrosive) Magengeschwür," Wiener med. Wochenschr., Nos. 26, 27, 1857; Brinton, On the Pathology, Symptoms, and Treatment of Ulcer of the Stomach, London, 1857; V. Ziemssen, Volkmann's Samml. klin. Vorträge, No. 15, 1871; Leube, Ziemssen's Handb. d. spec. Path. u. Therap., Bd. vii., Leipzig, 1878.

⁸ Das corrosive Geschwür im Magen und Darmkanal, Erlangen, 1860. Good descriptions of gastric ulcer are to be found in the well-known works on diseases of the stomach by the English writers, Budd, Chambers, Brinton, Habershon, Fenwick, and Wilson Fox.

ETIOLOGY.—We have no means of determining accurately the average frequency of simple gastric ulcer. The method usually adopted is to observe the number of cases in which open ulcers and cicatrices are found in the stomach in a large number of autopsies. But this method is open to two objections. The first objection is, that scars in the stomach, particularly if they are small, are liable to be overlooked or not to be noted in the record of the autopsy unless special attention is directed to their search. The second objection is, that it is not proven that all of the cicatrices found in the stomach are the scars of healed simple ulcers, and that, in fact, it is probable that many are not. In consequence of these defects (and others might be mentioned) this method is of very limited value, although it is perhaps the best which we have at our disposal.

In 32,052 autopsies made in Prague, Berlin, Dresden, Erlangen, and Kiel,⁹ there were found 1522 cases of open ulcer or of cicatrix in the stomach. If all the scars be reckoned as healed ulcers, according to these statistics gastric ulcer, either cicatrized or open, is found in about 5 per cent. of persons dying from all causes.

⁹ The Prague statistics embrace 11,888 autopsies, compiled from the following sources: 1, Jaksch, Prager Vierteljahrschr., vol. iii.; 2, Dittrich, ibid., vols. vii., viii., ix., x., xii., xiv.; 3, Willigk, ibid., vol. li.; 4, Eppinger, ibid., vol. cxvi.

The Berlin statistics are to be found in dissertations by Plange (abstract in Virchow's Archiv, vol. xviii.), by Steiner, and by Wollmann (abstracts in Virchow und Hirsch's Jahresbericht, 1868), and by Berthold (1883).

The Dresden statistics are in a dissertation by Stachelhausen (Würzburg, 1874), referred to by Birch-Hirschfeld, Lehrb. d. path. Anat., Bd. ii. p. 837, Leipzig, 1877.

The Erlangen statistics are reported by Ziemssen in Volkmann's Samml. klin. Vorträge, No. 15.

The Kiel report is in an inaugural dissertation by Greiss (Kiel, 1879), referred to in the Deutsche med. Wochenschr., Feb. 4, 1882, p. 79.

So far as possible, duodenal ulcers have been excluded. Only those reports have been admitted which include both open ulcers and cicatrices.

It is important to note the relative frequency of open ulcers as compared with that of cicatrices. In 11,888 bodies examined in Prague, there were found 164, or 1.4 per cent., with open ulcers, and 373, or 3.1 per cent., with cicatrices. Here scars were found about two and one-fourth times as frequently as open ulcers. The observations of Grünfeld in Copenhagen show that when especial attention is given to searching for cicatrices in the stomach, they are found much more frequently than the figures here given would indicate.¹⁰ It would be a moderate estimate to place the ratio of cicatrices to open ulcers at 3 to 1.

¹⁰ Grünfeld (abstract in Schmidt's Jahrb., Bd. 198, p. 141, 1883) in 1150 autopsies found 124 cicatrices in the stomach, or 11 per cent., but in only 450 of these cases was his attention especially directed to their search, and in these he found 92 cases, or 20 per cent., with scars. Grünfeld's statistics relate only to persons over fifty years of age. Gastric ulcer, moreover, is extraordinarily common in Copenhagen.

The inexact nature of the ordinary statistics relating to cicatrices is also evident from the fact that in the four collections of cases which comprise the Prague statistics the percentage of open ulcers varies only between 0.81 and 2.44, while the percentage of cicatrices varies between 0.89 and 5.42.

The statistics concerning the average frequency of open ulcers are much more exact and trustworthy than those relating to cicatrices. It may be considered reasonably certain that, at least in Europe, open gastric ulcers are found on the average in from 1 to 2 per cent. of persons dying from all causes.¹¹

¹¹ If in this estimate were included infants dying during the first days of life, the percentage would be much smaller.

It is manifestly impossible to form an accurate estimate of the frequency of gastric ulcer from the number of cases diagnosed as such during life, because the diagnosis is in many cases uncertain. Nevertheless, estimates upon this basis have practical clinical value. In 41,688 cases constituting the clinical material of Lebert¹² in Zurich and in Breslau between the years 1853 and 1873, the diagnosis of gastric ulcer was made in 252 cases, or about ²/3 per cent.

¹² Lebert, op. cit., p. 196.

Of 1699 cases of gastric ulcer collected from various hospital statistics¹³ and examined post-mortem, 692, or 40 per cent., were in males, and 1007, or 60 per cent., were in females. The result of this analysis makes the ratio 2 males to 3 females.

¹³ These statistics include the previously-cited Prague, Berlin, Dresden, and Erlangen cases so far as the sex is given, and in addition the returns of Rokitansky, op. cit.; Starcke (Jena), Deutsche Klinik, 1870, Nos. 26-29; Lebert, op. cit.; Chambers, London Journ. of Med., July, 1852; Habershon, Dis. of the Abdomen, 3d ed.; Moore, Trans. of London Path. Soc., 1880; and the Munich Hospital, Annalen d. städt. Allg. Krankenh. zu München, vols. i. and ii.

Only series of cases from the post-examinations of a number of years have been admitted. It is an error to include isolated cases from journals, as Brinton has done, because an undue number of these are cases of perforation, which is a more common event in females than in males. Thus, of 43 cases of gastric ulcer presented to the London Pathological Society since its foundation up to 1882, 19, or 44 per cent., were cases of perforation. In my cases are included a few duodenal ulcers not easily separated from the gastric ulcers in the compilation.

In order to determine from post-mortem records the age at which gastric ulcer most frequently occurs, all cases in which only cicatrices are found should be excluded, because a cicatrix gives no evidence as to the age at which the ulcer existed.

The following table gives the age in 607 cases of open ulcer collected from hospital statistics¹⁴ (post-mortem material):

From this table it is apparent that three-fourths of the cases are found between the ages of twenty and sixty, and that the cases are distributed with tolerable uniformity between these four decades. The largest number of cases is found between twenty and thirty. The frequency of gastric ulcer after sixty years diminishes, although it remains quite considerable, especially in view of the comparatively small number of those living after that period.

¹⁴ The sources of these statistics are the same as those of the statistics relating to sex in the preceding foot-note. The age in the Erlangen cases of open ulcer is given by Hauser (Das chronische Magengeschwür, p. 191, Leipzig, 1883). It is evident that only about two-fifths of the cases could be utilized, partly because in some the age was not stated, but mainly on account of the necessity of excluding scars—a self-evident precaution which Brinton did not take.

The probability that many cases of ulcer included in the above table existed for several years before death makes it desirable that estimates as to the occurrence of the disease at different ages should be made also from cases carefully diagnosed during life, although the diagnosis must necessarily be less certain than that in the post-mortem records. The best statistics of this character which we possess are those of Lebert, from whose work the following table has been compiled:

Of these cases, nearly seven-tenths were between twenty and forty years of age—a preponderance sufficiently great to be of diagnostic value.¹⁶

¹⁵ Op. cit., p. 199. Of these cases, 19 were fatal, and the diagnosis was confirmed after death. All of the cases were studied by Lebert in hospitals in Zurich and Breslau.

¹⁶ In my opinion, clinical experience is more valuable than are post-mortem records in determining the age at which gastric ulcer most frequently develops. In support of this opinion are the following facts: In many cases no positive conclusions as to the age of the ulcer can be drawn from the post-mortem appearances, and sufficient clinical history is often wanting; a considerable proportion of the cases of gastric ulcer do not terminate fatally with the first attack, but are subject to relapses which may prove fatal in advanced life; in most general hospitals the number of patients in advanced life is relatively in excess of those in youth and middle age. By his faulty method of investigating this question, Brinton came to the erroneous conclusion that the liability to gastric ulcer is greatest in old age—a conclusion which is opposed to clinical experience.

The oldest case on record is the one mentioned by Eppinger,¹⁷ of an old beggar whose age is stated at one hundred and twenty years.

¹⁷ Prager Vierteljahrschrift, Bd. 116.

The occurrence of simple ulcer of the stomach under ten years of age is extremely rare. Rokitansky, with his enormous experience, said that he had never seen a case under fourteen years.¹⁸ There are recorded, however, a number of cases of gastric ulcer in infancy and childhood, but there is doubt as to how many of these are genuine examples of simple ulcer. Rehn in 1874 analyzed a number, although by no means all, of the reputed cases, and found only six, or at the most seven, which would stand criticism.¹⁹ The age in these seven cases varied between seven days and thirteen years. In one case (Donné) a cicatrix was found in the stomach of a child three years old. Since the publication of Rehn's article at least four apparently genuine cases have been reported—namely, one by Reimer in a child three and a half years old; one by Goodhart in an infant thirty hours after birth; one by Eröss in a girl twelve years old suffering from acute miliary tuberculosis, in whom the ulcer perforated into the omental sac; and one by Malinowski in a girl ten years of age.²⁰

¹⁸ Communication to Von Gunz in Jahrbuch d. Kinderheilkunde, Bd. 5, p. 161, 1862.

¹⁹ Jahrb. d. Kinderheilk., N. F., Bd. 7, p. 19, 1874.

²⁰ Reimer, ibid., Bd. x. p. 289, 1876; Goodhart, Trans. London Path. Soc., vol. xxxii. p. 79, 1881; Eröss, Jahrb. f. Kinderheilk., Bd. xix. p. 331, 1883; Malinowski, Index Medicus, vol. v. p. 575, New York, 1883.

Rehn does not mention Buzzard's case of perforating ulcer in a girl nine years old (Trans. London Path. Soc., vol. xii. p. 84, 1861). See also Chvostek's case of round ulcer in a boy (Arch. f. Kinderheilk., 1881-82) and Wertheimber's case of recovery from gastric ulcer in a girl ten years old (Jahrb. f. Kinderheilk., Bd. xix. p. 79).

The mean age at which gastric ulcer develops is somewhat higher in the male than in the female. This is apparent from the following collection of 332 cases of open ulcer in which both age and sex are given:²¹

In males the largest number of cases is found between thirty and forty years, and in females between twenty and thirty. In males 54½ per cent. of the cases occur after forty years of age, and in females 48.9 per cent.

²¹ These cases are obtained from the same sources as those of the first table (page 483).

The relation between age and perforation of gastric ulcer will be discussed in connection with this symptom.

The conclusions concerning the age of occurrence of gastric ulcer may be recapitulated as follows: Simple ulcer of the stomach most frequently develops in the female between twenty and thirty, and in the male between thirty and forty. At the post-mortem table it is found with almost equal frequency in the four decades between twenty and sixty, but clinically it appears with greatly diminished frequency after forty years of age. In infancy and early childhood simple ulcer of the stomach is a curiosity.

We have no positive information as to the influence of climate upon the production of gastric ulcer. The disease seems to be somewhat unequal in its geographical distribution, but the data bearing upon this point are altogether insufficient.

According to the returns of Dahlerup and of Grünfeld, gastric ulcer is unusually common in Copenhagen.²² According to Starcke's report²³—which, however, is not based upon a large number of cases—the percentage is also unusually high in Jena. Sperk says that gastric ulcer is very common in Eastern Siberia.²⁴ Palgrave gives a high percentage of its occurrence in Arabia.²⁵ The disease is less common in France than in England or in Germany,²⁶ and in general appears to be more common in northern than in southern countries. The statement of DaCosta²⁷ coincides with my own impression that gastric ulcer is less common in this country than in England or in Germany. I have found 6 cases of open ulcer of the stomach in about 800 autopsies made by me in New York.

²² Dahlerup in Copenhagen (abstract in Canstatt's Jahresbericht, 1842) found 26 cases in 200 autopsies (13 per cent.) made in the course of a year and a half. Grünfeld (loc. cit.) found 124 cicatrices in 1150 autopsies (11 per cent.).

²³ Starke (loc. cit.) found 39 cases in 384 autopsies (10 per cent.); cf. also Müller, Jenaische Zeitschr., v. 1870.

²⁴ Deutsche Klinik, 1867.

²⁵ Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, London, 1865.

²⁶ Laveran and Teissier, Nouveaux Éléments de Path. et de Clin. méd., t. ii. p. 1060, Paris, 1879; and Godin, Essai sur l'Ulcère de l'Estomac, Thèse, Paris, 1877, p. 8.

²⁷ Medical Diagnosis, 5th ed., Philada., 1881. Keating expresses the same opinion in the Proc. of Path. Soc. of Philadelphia, vol. i. p. 142.

In 444,564 deaths in New York City from 1868 to 1882, inclusive, ulcer of the stomach was assigned as the cause of death only in 410 cases. Little value can be assigned to these statistics as regards a disease so difficult of diagnosis.

Gastric ulcer is more common among the poor than among the rich. Anxiety, mental depression, scanty food, damp dwellings, insufficient exercise, and exposure to extreme cold are among the depressing influences which have been assigned as predisposing causes of gastric ulcer, but without sufficient proof.

The comparative frequency of gastric ulcer among needlewomen, maidservants, and female cooks has attracted the attention of all who have had large opportunity for clinical observation.

Pressure upon the pit of the stomach, either by wearing tight belts or in the pursuit of certain occupations, such as those of shoemaking, of tailoring, and of weaving, is thought by Habershon and others to predispose to ulcer of the stomach.²⁸

²⁸ Bernutz found gastric ulcer in a turner in porcelain, and learned that other workmen in the same factory had vomited blood. He thinks that in this and in similar occupations heavy particles of dust collecting in the mouth and throat may be swallowed with the saliva, and by their irritation cause gastric ulcer (Gaz. des Hôpitaux, June 18, 1881).

Vomiting of blood has been known in several instances to affect a number of members of the same family, but beyond this unsatisfactory evidence there is nothing to show hereditary influence in the origin of gastric ulcer.

In a few cases injury of the region of the stomach, as by a fall or a blow, has been assigned as the cause of ulcer. The efficacy of this cause has been accepted by Gerhardt,²⁹ Lebert, Ziemssen, and others. In many of the cases in which this cause has been assigned the symptoms of ulcer appeared so long after the injury that it is doubtful whether there was any connection between the two.

²⁹ "Zur Aetiologie u. Therapie d. runden Magengeschwürz," Wiener med. Presse, No. 1, 1868.

That loss of substance in the mucous membrane of the stomach may be the result of injury directly or indirectly applied to this organ cannot admit of question. But it is characteristic of these traumatic ulcers that they rapidly heal unless the injury is so severe as to prove speedily fatal. Thus, Duplay³⁰ relates three cases in which pain, vomiting, repeated vomiting of blood, and dyspepsia followed contusions of the region of the stomach. But these traumatic cases, which for a time gave the symptoms of gastric ulcer, recovered in from two weeks to two months, whereas the persistence of the symptoms is a characteristic of simple ulcer.³¹

³⁰ "Contusions de l'Estomac," Arch. gén. de Méd., Sept., 1881.

³¹ In a case reported by Potain, however, the symptoms of ulcer appeared immediately after injury to the stomach, and continued up to the time of death (Gaz. hebdom., Sept. 12, 1856).

In the same way, ulcers of the stomach produced by corrosive poisons as a rule soon cicatrize, unless death follows after a short time the action of the poison. That corrosive ulcers may, however, be closely allied to simple ulcers is shown by an interesting case reported by Wilson Fox,³² in which the immediate effects of swallowing hydrochloric acid were recovered from in about four days, but death resulted from vomiting of blood two weeks after. At the autopsy the source of the hemorrhage was found in an ulcer of the pyloric region of the stomach. An equally striking case is reported by Williams.³³ A boy who suffered severely for three or four days after drinking some strong mineral acid recovered, so that he ate and drank as usual. Two months afterward he died suddenly from perforation of a gastric ulcer.

³² Trans. of the Path. Soc., vol. xix. p. 239, London, 1868.

³³ The Lancet, April 9, 1842.

While, then, it would be a great error to identify traumatic and corrosive ulcers of the stomach with simple ulcer, it is possible that either may become chronic if associated with those conditions of the stomach or of the constitution, for the most part unknown to us, which prevent the ready healing of simple ulcer.

Gastric ulcer is often associated with other diseases, but it occurs also uncomplicated in a large number of cases. Most of the diseases with which it has been found associated are to be regarded simply as coincident or complicating affections; but as some of them have been thought to cause the ulcer, they demand consideration in this connection.

The large share taken by pulmonary phthisis in deaths from all causes renders this disease a frequent associate of gastric ulcer. It is probable that the lowered vitality of phthisical patients increases somewhat their liability to gastric ulcer. Moreover, it would not be strange if gastric ulcer, as well as other exhausting diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, diminished the power of resisting tuberculous infection. Genuine tuberculous ulcers occur rarely in the stomach, but they are not to be identified with simple ulcer.

There is no proof that amenorrhoea or other disorders of menstruation exert any direct influence in the production of gastric ulcer, although Crisp went so far as to designate certain cases of gastric ulcer as the menstrual ulcer.³⁴ Nevertheless, amenorrhoea is a very common symptom or associated condition in the gastric ulcer of females between sixteen and thirty years of age.

³⁴ The Lancet, Aug. 5, 1843.

Chlorosis and anæmia, especially in young women, favor the development of gastric ulcer, but that there is no necessary relation between the two is shown by the occurrence of ulcer in those previously robust. Moreover, it is probable that in some cases in which the anæmia has been thought to precede the ulcer it has, in fact, been a result rather than a cause of the ulcer.

Especial interest attaches to the relation between gastric ulcer and diseases of the heart and of the blood-vessels, because to disturbances in the circulation in the stomach the largest share in the pathenogenesis of ulcer has been assigned by Virchow. As might be expected, valvular lesions of the heart and atheroma of the arteries are not infrequently found in elderly people who are the subjects of gastric ulcer. A small proportion of cases of ulcer has been associated also with other diseases in which the arteries are often abnormal, such as with chronic diffuse nephritis, syphilis, amyloid degeneration, and endarteritis obliterans. But, after making the most generous allowance for the influence of these diseases in the causation of ulcer of the stomach, there remains a large number of cases of ulcer in which no disease of the heart or of the arteries has been found.³⁵ Gastric ulcer develops most frequently between fifteen and forty years of age, a period when arterial diseases are not common. Changes in the blood-vessels of the stomach will be described in connection with the morbid anatomy of gastric ulcer.

³⁵ From Berlin are reported the largest number of cases of gastric ulcer associated with diseases of the circulatory apparatus; thus, by Berthold 170 out of 294 cases, and by Steiner 71 out of 110 cases of ulcer. Endocarditis and arterial atheroma (present in one-third of Berthold's cases of ulcer) form the largest proportion of these diseases.

Chronic passive congestion of the stomach in cases of cirrhosis of the liver, direct injury to the mucous membrane of the stomach by parasites in trichinosis, hemorrhage into the coats of the stomach in scorbutus and in dementia paralytica, persistent vomiting in pregnancy, and anæmia induced by prolonged lactation, have each been assigned as causes in a few cases of gastric ulcer, but they are not associated with gastric ulcer in enough cases to make their causative influence at all certain.

Galliard assigns diabetes mellitus as the cause in one case of gastric ulcer.³⁶

³⁶ Clin. méd. de la Pitié, Paris, 1877, p. 77.

Rokitansky attributed some cases of gastric ulcer to intermittent fever.

Those who believe in the inflammatory origin of ulcer of the stomach think that chronic gastritis is an important predisposing cause.

The abuse of alcohol is admitted as an indirect cause of gastric ulcer by the majority of writers.

Lastly, burns of the skin, which are an important factor in the etiology of duodenal ulcers, have been followed only in a very few instances by ulcer of the stomach.

The direct causes of ulcer of the stomach, concerning which our positive knowledge is very limited, will be considered under the pathenogenesis of the disease.

SYMPTOMATOLOGY.—The following classes of cases of gastric ulcer may be distinguished:

First: Gastric ulcer may give rise to no symptoms pointing to its existence, and be found accidentally at the autopsy when death has occurred from some other disease. This latent course is most frequent with gastric ulcers complicating chronic wasting diseases, such as tuberculosis, and with gastric ulcers in elderly people.

Second: Gastric ulcer may give rise to no marked symptoms before profuse hemorrhage from the stomach or perforation of the stomach, resulting speedily in death, occurs. Acute ulcers in anæmic females from fifteen to thirty years of age are those most liable to perforate without previous symptoms.

Third: Gastric ulcer may occasion only the symptoms of chronic gastritis, or of functional dyspepsia, or of purely nervous gastralgia, so that its diagnosis is impossible. In this class of cases after a time characteristic symptoms may develop. Here, too, sudden death may occur from hemorrhage or from perforation.

Fourth: In typical cases characteristic symptoms are present, so that the diagnosis can be made more or less positively. These symptoms are pain, and hemorrhage from the stomach, associated usually with vomiting and disturbances of digestion.

The different symptoms of gastric ulcer will now be described.

Of all the symptoms, pain is the most constant and is often the first to attract attention. It is absent throughout the disease only in exceptional cases. In different cases, and often in the same case at different times, the pain varies in its quality, its intensity, its situation, its duration, and in other characteristics.

The kind of pain which is most characteristic of gastric ulcer is severe paroxysmal pain strictly localized in a circumscribed spot in the epigastrium, coming on soon after eating, and disappearing as soon as the stomach is relieved of its contents.

More common, although less characteristic, than the strictly localized pain are paroxysms of severe pain, usually called cardialgic³⁷ or gastralgic, diffused over the epigastrium and often spreading into the surrounding regions. This is like the neuralgic pain of nervous gastralgia, which is not infrequent in chlorotic and hysterical females. The pain may be so intense as to induce syncope, or even convulsions, in very sensitive patients.

³⁷ There is much confusion as to the meaning of the term cardialgia. With most English and American writers it signifies heartburn, while continental writers understand by cardialgia the severe paroxysms of epigastric pain which we more frequently call gastralgia.

The strictly localized pain is probably caused by direct irritation confined to the nerves in the floor of the ulcer. In the diffuse gastralgic attacks the irritation radiates or is reflected to the neighboring nerves, and sometimes to those at a distance.

In most cases of gastric ulcer localized epigastric pain and diffuse gastralgic paroxysms are combined.

The painful sense of oppression and fulness in the epigastrium which is felt in many cases of gastric ulcer after eating is simply a dyspeptic symptom, and is probably referable to an associated chronic catarrhal gastritis. This dyspeptic pain is of little value in diagnosis.

Most subjects of gastric ulcer feel in the intervals between the paroxysms a more or less constant dull pain, or it may be only a sense of uneasiness, in the epigastrium. When sharp epigastric pain is felt continuously, it is usually inferred that the ulcer has extended to the peritoneum and has caused a circumscribed peritonitis, but this inference is not altogether trustworthy.

The quality of the pain caused by gastric ulcer is described variously as burning, gnawing, boring, less frequently as lancinating.

More important than the quality is the situation of the pain. The situation of the localized pain is usually at or a little below the ensiform cartilage. It may, however, be felt as low as the umbilicus or it may deviate to the hypochondria. In addition to pain in the epigastrium (point épigastrique), Cruveilhier called attention to the frequent presence of pain in the dorsal region (point rachidien). The dorsal pain, which may be more severe than the epigastric, is sometimes interscapular, and sometimes corresponds to the lowest dorsal or to the upper lumbar vertebræ. It is usually a little to the left of the spine. The pain is often described as extending from the pit of the stomach through to the back.

According to Brinton, the situation of the localized pain gives a clue to the situation of the ulcer, pain near the left border of the ensiform cartilage indicating ulcer near the cardiac orifice, pain in the median line and to the right of this indicating ulcer of the pyloric region, and pain in the left hypochondrium indicating ulcer of the fundus. It does not often happen that the pain remains so sharply localized as to make possible this diagnosis, even if the situation of the pain were a safe guide.

Of the various circumstances which influence the severity of the pain in gastric ulcer, the most important is the effect of food. Pain usually comes on within a few minutes to half an hour after taking food, although it may appear immediately after ingestion or be delayed for an hour or more. The pain continues until the stomach is relieved of its contents by vomiting or by their passage into the duodenum. It is unsafe to attempt to diagnose the position of the ulcer merely from the length of time which elapses between the ingestion of food and the onset of pain. It has sometimes been noticed that as improvement progresses pain comes on later and later after eating. As might naturally be expected, coarse, indigestible, imperfectly-masticated food, sour and spirituous liquids, and hot substances are more irritating than bland articles of diet. In some exceptional cases the ingestion of even coarse food, instead of aggravating, has had no effect upon the pain, or at least for the time being has even relieved it.

External pressure usually increases the intensity of the pain of gastric ulcer; in rare instances pressure relieves the pain.

Rest and the recumbent posture as a rule alleviate the pain of ulcer of the stomach. The position of the patient may affect the severity of the pain in a more striking way. It may naturally be supposed that that posture is most agreeable which removes from the ulcer the weight of the food during digestion. Hence it was claimed by Osborne³⁸ that the site of the ulcer could often be inferred from the effect of posture on the pain. Thus, relief in the prone position would indicate ulcer of the posterior wall; relief in the supine position, ulcer of the anterior wall; relief on the left or on the right side, ulcer of the pyloric or of the cardiac region respectively. As ulcer of the posterior wall is the most frequent, relief should be obtained oftener by bending forward or by lying on the face than in the supine position. Experience has shown that the influence of posture on the pain is not a safe guide in diagnosing the location of the ulcer.

³⁸ Jonathan Osborne, Dublin Journal of Medical Science, vol. xxvii. p. 357, 1845.

Mental emotions—particularly anxiety and anger—fatigue, even moderate exercise, exposure to cold, and the menstrual molimen may each cause exacerbations of pain in some cases of gastric ulcer.

Tenderness on pressure is a common symptom of gastric ulcer. A localized point of tenderness may be discovered even when the subjective pain is not localized. Pain sometimes follows pressure not immediately, but after a brief interval. A fixed point of tenderness can often be determined when the stomach is empty more accurately than when it is full. The tender spot can sometimes be covered by the finger's end. In searching for a point of tenderness it should be remembered that many persons are very sensitive to pressure in the epigastrium, and also that pressure is not without danger to those who are the subjects of gastric ulcer. Not only may pressure induce paroxysms of pain, but it may cause even rupture of the ulcerated walls of the stomach.³⁹ Hence pressure should be cautiously employed and should not be often repeated.

³⁹ Dalton has reported a case in which perforation of a gastric ulcer occurred while the patient was subjected in a water-cure establishment to kneading of the abdomen to relieve his flatulence (Trans. N.Y. Path. Soc., vol. i. p. 263.)

In some cases of gastric ulcer pain is felt in regions at a distance from the stomach. The most frequent of these so-called radiation neuralgias are—neuralgia of the lower intercostal spaces, combined sometimes with hyperæsthesia or with analgesia of the affected region, pain in the right shoulder (perhaps due to adhesions between the stomach and the liver or the diaphragm), pain in the left shoulder, and pain in the loins. In a case of ulcer reported by Traube terminating in perforation the sole complaint, besides loss of appetite and retching, had been difficulty in breathing and oppression in the chest. These symptoms, which may be combined with gastralgic paroxysms, are referred by Traube to transference of the irritation from the gastric to the pulmonary filaments of the pneumogastric nerve.⁴⁰

⁴⁰ Deutsche Klinik, 1861, No. 10. These symptoms evidently correspond to the vagus neurosis described by Rosenbach, in which, as the result of reflex irritation of the pneumogastric nerve in the stomach, occur difficulty in breathing, oppression in the chest, palpitation, arhythmical action of the heart, and epigastric pulsation (Deutsche med. Wochenschr., 1879, Nos. 42, 43).

Sometimes the pain of gastric ulcer intermits for days or even weeks. When the intermission is of considerable duration it is probable that cicatrization has been in progress. It should, however, be remembered that gastralgic attacks may continue even after cicatrization of the ulcer is completed, probably in consequence of compression of nerve-filaments by the cicatricial tissue. Once in a while the pain exhibits a marked periodicity in its appearance. Thus in a case of ulcer ending fatally from hemorrhage the pain came on but once a day, and that with considerable regularity at the same hour. In this case the pain was relieved by taking food.⁴¹ The pain of gastric ulcer may be temporarily relieved by hemorrhage from the stomach, and perhaps by division of the irritated nerve by sloughing (Habershon).

⁴¹ Case reported by Peacock, Rep. of Proceedings of London Path. Soc., vol. i. p. 253, 1847.

The causes of the pain of gastric ulcer are not far to seek. Foremost is the irritation of nerve-filaments exposed by the ulcerative process. The irritation may be by mechanical, chemical, or thermic agencies. With our present imperfect knowledge it is profitless to discuss whether the pneumogastric or the sympathetic nerves are the chief carriers of the abnormal sensations.⁴² In the next place, we may have radiation of the irritation from these nerves to neighboring and even to remote nerves. Furthermore, the extension of the inflammation to the peritoneum and the surrounding parts, and the formation of adhesions, are additional factors in some cases in causing pain. Finally, the great differences in susceptibility to pain manifested by different individuals is to be borne in mind.

⁴² Leven, without sufficient reason, distinguishes two kinds of gastralgic attacks—the one having its point of departure in the pneumogastric, the other in the sympathetic nerve; in the former the pain is associated with dyspnoea and palpitation of the heart; in the latter the pain is deeper, and is accompanied by vaso-motor (?) troubles on one side of the body.

Next to pain, vomiting is the most frequent symptom of gastric ulcer. There is, however, little which is characteristic of ulcer in this symptom, unless the vomited material contains blood. In some cases of gastric ulcer vomiting is the most marked and most distressing symptom of the disease. It may, however, be absent during the whole course of gastric ulcer.

Vomiting occurs most frequently after taking food, and is greatly aggravated by an unregulated diet. Sometimes nearly everything which is taken into the stomach is vomited. The vomiting of mucus or of a thin fluid unmixed with food is indicative only of chronic catarrhal gastritis. Alimentary vomiting, which is more indicative of gastric ulcer, usually occurs not immediately after taking food, but at the acme of a gastralgic attack caused by the food. Soon after the stomach is emptied by one or more acts of vomiting the pain is relieved. The act of vomiting is usually easy, and at times is hardly more than regurgitation of the food. Sometimes the patient experiences an excessively sour taste from the vomit.

Vomiting exhausts the patient by withdrawing nutriment, and when persistent may even cause death from inanition. But in some cases of gastric ulcer, especially in women, the vomiting seems to be mainly a nervous symptom, and even when long continued may be attended by little or no loss of flesh. Evidently, more food is retained in these cases than might be supposed.

There are two evident causes of vomiting in gastric ulcer—namely, chronic catarrhal gastritis, which is a frequent complication, and direct irritation of the nerves in the ulcer. Vomiting due to dilatation of the stomach is oftener a sequel than an immediate symptom of gastric ulcer.

For the diagnosis of gastric ulcer hemorrhage from the stomach is the most important symptom.

The frequency of only the larger hemorrhages can be determined with any degree of exactness. If the blood be effused in small quantity or slowly, it may be discharged solely with the stools and escape detection. Such slight hemorrhages doubtless occur in most cases of gastric ulcer. It is probable that easily-recognized hemorrhages from the stomach occur in about one-third of the cases of gastric ulcer.⁴³ Hemorrhage is absent as a rule in the acute perforating ulcer of the stomach.

⁴³ In consequence of the uncertainty of the diagnosis in cases of gastric ulcer which recover without hemorrhage, the estimates of the frequency of this symptom have a very limited value, and will vary with different observers according to their standard of diagnosis of this disease. Lebert observed gastric hemorrhage in four-fifths of his carefully-studied cases, and in three-fifths of his cases there was profuse hæmatemesis. Brinton estimates that the larger hemorrhages occur in about one-third of the cases. Müller found them in one-fourth of the cases which he analyzed.

In most cases hemorrhage from gastric ulcer is preceded by pain, vomiting, and disturbances of digestion. Antecedent symptoms may, however, be absent, or may be so obscure that no suspicion of ulcer exists until the hemorrhage occurs.

The hemorrhage may be slight, moderate, or excessive in amount (Cruveilhier). The larger hemorrhages are those which are most distinctive of gastric ulcer.

The blood may be vomited, or voided with the stools, or retained in the stomach and the intestines.

As has been remarked, when the hemorrhage is scanty all the blood may escape by the bowel. Sometimes, although much less frequently, blood effused in large quantity is entirely evacuated with the stools. After hæmatemesis more or less blood is discharged by the bowel, sometimes for several days after the vomiting of blood has ceased. Blood which has traversed the whole length of the intestinal canal acquires a tarry consistence and a black or brownish color in consequence of the production of dark-brown hæmatin by the action of the digestive juices upon the hæmoglobin, and in consequence of the formation of black sulphide of iron by the union of hydrogen sulphide in the lower part of the intestine with the iron of the hæmatin. The passage of these black viscid stools is called melæna. Inasmuch as we cannot presume gastric hemorrhage to be absent simply because no blood has been vomited, it is evidently important to examine the stools for blood when the diagnosis of gastric ulcer is obscure, and also in cases of gastric ulcer where there are symptoms of internal hemorrhage not accounted for by blood vomited. It should be remembered that certain drugs, particularly iron and bismuth, may blacken the feces.

In very exceptional cases of gastric ulcer the effusion of a large volume of blood causes sudden death before any of the blood has been vomited. The autopsy shows the stomach and more or less of the small intestine distended with coagulated blood.

Hemorrhage from gastric ulcer is usually made manifest by the vomiting of blood. The quantity of the vomited blood varies from mere traces to several pounds. The color and the consistence of the blood depend upon the quantity effused and the length of time that the blood has remained in the stomach. Blood which has been acted upon by the gastric juice is coagulated, has a grumous consistence, and acquires by the formation of hæmatin out of hæmoglobin a dark-brown color, often compared to that of coffee-grounds. Blood effused in small quantity is usually vomited only with the food, and has usually the coffee-grounds appearance. The patient's condition is not appreciably influenced by this slight loss of blood. A little blood expelled after repeated acts of vomiting has no diagnostic importance. Vomiting usually occurs soon after a large gastric hemorrhage. It is the mechanical distension of the stomach rather than any irritating quality of the blood which causes the vomiting. Blood which is rejected immediately after a large gastric hemorrhage is alkaline, fluid, and of an arterial (rarely of a venous) hue. Often, however, even with large hemorrhages, the blood remains sufficiently long in the stomach to be partly coagulated and to be darkened in color. Ulcer more frequently than any other disease of the stomach causes the vomiting of unaltered blood in large quantity. But this kind of hæmatemesis is not peculiar to simple ulcer. It may occur in other diseases, such as gastric cancer, and coffee-ground vomiting may be associated with ulcer.

Copious hæmatemesis in cases of gastric ulcer appears usually without premonition, or it may be preceded for a day or two by increased pain. Its occurrence is somewhat more common during the digestion of food than in the intervals, but there have been cases of ulcer where the bleeding was favored by an empty stomach and was checked by the distension of the organ with food. The free use of stimulants and violent physical or mental exertion may excite hemorrhage. With the onset of the hemorrhage the patient experiences a sense of warmth and of oppression at the epigastrium, followed by faintness, nausea, and the vomiting of a large quantity of blood. An attack of syncope often causes, at least temporarily, cessation of the hemorrhage. But the thrombus which closes the eroded vessel may easily be washed away, so that the hemorrhage often recurs and continues at intervals for several days, thereby greatly increasing the danger to the patient. Thus, the tendency is for the hemorrhage from gastric ulcer to appear in phases or periods occupying several days.

A single hemorrhage is rarely so profuse as to cause immediate death. More frequently the patient dies after successive hemorrhages. In the majority of cases the hemorrhage is not immediately dangerous to life, but is followed by symptoms of anæmia, more or less profound according to the strength of the patient and the amount of blood lost. Prostration and pallor follow the larger hemorrhages. Dizziness, ringing in the ears, and dimness of vision appear when the patient attempts to leave the recumbent posture. Thirst is often a marked symptom. The pulse is feeble and more frequent than normal. There is often a moderate elevation of temperature (anæmic fever) after profuse hemorrhage. The urine is pale, abundant, and sometimes contains albumen (Quincke). After a few days anæmic cardiac murmurs can often be heard. Under favorable circumstances these symptoms of anæmia disappear in the course of a few weeks.

The other symptoms of ulcer, particularly the pain, are sometimes notably relieved, and may even disappear, after an abundant hemorrhage. They usually, however, return sooner or later. After a variable interval one attack of hæmatemesis is likely to be followed by others. There is much diversity in different cases as regards the frequency of these attacks and the character of the symptoms in the intervals. In a few cases recovery follows a single attack of gastric hemorrhage; in other cases the hemorrhage recurs frequently after intervals of only a few days, weeks, or months; in still other cases hemorrhage recurs only after long intervals, perhaps of years, although other symptoms of ulcer continue. Sometimes the disappearance of symptoms indicates only an apparent cure, and later the patient dies suddenly while in apparent health by a profuse gastric hemorrhage. In the rare cases of this last variety Cruveilhier has found sometimes that the ulcer has cicatrized except just over the eroded blood-vessel.

The sources of the hemorrhage in gastric ulcer will be described in connection with the morbid anatomy.

The symptoms of gastric indigestion are commonly, although not constantly, present in gastric ulcer. They may constitute the sole symptoms, in which case the diagnosis of the lesion is impossible. The most important local symptoms of gastric dyspepsia are diminution, less frequently perversion or increase, of the appetite; increased thirst; during digestion, and sometimes independent of digestion, a feeling of discomfort merely or of painful oppression, or even of sharp pain, in the epigastrium; nausea; vomiting of undigested food, of mucus, and of bile; regurgitation of thin fluids; often acid, sometimes neutral or alkaline, flatulence, with belching of gas, and constipation. In many cases of gastric ulcer the appetite is not disturbed, but the patient refrains from eating on account of the pain caused by taking food. Among the so-called sympathetic symptoms of dyspepsia are headache, dizziness, depression of spirits, oppression in the chest, and irregularity of the heart's action. Dyspepsia contributes its share to the production of the anæmia and of the loss of flesh and strength which are present in some degree in most cases of chronic gastric ulcer.

In many cases of acute perforating ulcer, as well as in some cases of chronic ulcer, the symptoms are either absent or they are but slightly marked. It has been demonstrated that in many cases of gastric ulcer the resorptive power of the mucous membrane of the stomach is unimpaired.⁴⁴

⁴⁴ This is shown by the experiments of Pentzoldt and Faber, who determined the length of time which elapsed between swallowing gelatin capsules containing iodide of potassium and the appearance of the iodide in the saliva (Berl. klin. Wochenschr., No. 21, 1882). Quetsch observed rapid absorption from the stomach in two cases of gastric ulcer (ibid., 1884, No. 23). It is believed that also the duration of the digestive process in the stomach is often within normal limits in cases of gastric ulcer, although exact experiments upon this point, as they require the use of the stomach-pump, have not been made in this disease (Leube).

The most common cause of dyspepsia in gastric ulcer is the chronic catarrhal gastritis which usually accompanies this disease. It is probable that the movements of the stomach may be seriously interfered with by destruction of the muscular coat of the stomach when the ulcer is of considerable size and is seated in the pyloric region. Adhesions of the stomach to surrounding parts may likewise impair the normal movements of the stomach. It is possible that ulcers, especially those which are very painful, may cause reflex disturbance of the peristaltic movements of the stomach and alterations in the quality or the quantity of the gastric juice. The serious digestive disturbances which are caused by distortions and dilatation of the stomach resulting from cicatricial contraction of gastric ulcer are not considered in this article.

Although Niemeyer emphasized the frequency in gastric ulcer of a strikingly red tongue with smooth or furrowed surface, it does not appear that any especial importance is to be attached to this or to any other condition of the tongue as a symptom of the disease.

Increased flow of saliva is a rare symptom, which, when it occurs, is usually associated with dyspepsia.

Constipation is the rule in gastric ulcer. The most important of the various circumstances which combine to produce this condition is the small amount of solid food taken and retained by the patient. The restraint caused by gastric ulcer and gastric catarrh in the normal movements of the stomach may diminish by reflex action the peristalsis of the intestines (Traube and Radziejewski). The passage of large quantities of blood along the intestinal canal is often associated with colicky pains and diarrhoea.

Amenorrhoea is a symptom which was formerly thought to be characteristic of gastric ulcer, although there was much discussion as to whether it was the cause or the result of the ulcer. Amenorrhoea is indeed common in the gastric ulcer of young women, but there is nothing strange in this when one considers the frequency of amenorrhoea in general, and its causation by various debilitating and depressing influences such as are to be found in gastric ulcer. Notwithstanding a few striking cases which have been recorded, it has not been demonstrated that hemorrhages vicarious of menstruation take place from gastric ulcer.

Gastric ulcer is not a febrile disease. Temporary elevation of temperature may follow profuse gastrorrhagia and may attend various complications, of which the most important are gastritis and peritonitis. It has been recently claimed by Peter that the surface-temperature of the epigastrium is elevated in gastric ulcer, but the observations upon this point are as yet too few for any positive conclusions.⁴⁵

⁴⁵ According to Peter, the normal surface-temperature of the epigastrium is from 95½° to 96° F. (35.3° to 35.5° C.), while in gastric ulcer the temperature may equal or even exceed by one or two degrees the axillary temperature. It is said to register the highest during attacks of pain and of vomiting and after hemorrhages (Gaz. des Hôpitaux, June 23 and 30, 1883). See also Beaurieux (Essai sur la Pseudo-gastralgie, etc., Thèse, Paris, 1879).