A Study of Peptic Ulcer Based on Necropsy Records

Until the advent of modern surgical methods and the use of the roentgen ray, gastric ulcer was believed to be more frequent than duodenal ulcer. Reports from Europe still show that it is; in the United States clinical and surgical experience indicate that duodenal ulcer is far more frequent, but observations at necropsy fail to bear this out. For 1931 the division of vital statistics at Washington reported 4,978 deaths from ulcer of the stomach (4.2 per cent) and 2,281 deaths from ulcer of the duodenum (1.9 per cent), with a total incidence of 6.1 per cent. The literature dealing with the incidence of peptic ulcer in clinical and surgical material is copious (Mayo-Robson,1Hinton,2Streicher,3Sanders,4Percy and Beilin,5Smithies6and others). However, it is very difficult to gather evidence obtained at necropsy. Before the Great War, Rütimeyer7gave the geographic incidence