Some experience with deglycyrrhizinated liquorice in the treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers with special reference to its spasmolytic effect.

Liquorice has been used in medicine for many years, originally as a sweetening agent, but its efficacy was not fully realized until Revers (1946, 1958) found that peptic ulcers healed rapidly with its extract. However, oedema, heartburn, congestive cardiac failure, and headaches were commonly encountered as side effects of the crude extract. Molhuysen, Gerbrandy, de Vries, de Jong, Renstia, Turner, and Borst (1950) confirmed these findings and attributed them to retention of water and sodium chloride. Moreover, they also observed an increase in excretion of potassium which was later demonstrated by Revers (1951). Revers (1952) found that if glycyrrhizinic acid was removed from liquorice the oedema did not occur in one of his patients but it reappeared when the whole liquorice was administered. Nelemans-Stamperius (1949) showed by experiments in vitro that liquorice inhibited intestinal spasm caused by acetylcholine or barium chloride, a result which was subsequently confirmed by Aarsen and Van Noordwijk (1963).