Helicobacter pylori and the Bacterial Theory of Ulcers

Dr. Robin Warren The story begins with Dr. J. Robin Warren. Dr. Warren was a pathologist at the Royal Perth Hospital (RPH) in Western Australia. A pathologist is a medical doctor who examines tissues and is responsible for the accuracy of laboratory tests. Pathologists interpret the results of these examinations and tests and provide information important for a patient’s diagnosis and recovery. Part of Warren’s duties as a pathologist was to examine histological sections from gastric biopsies. With the arrival in the early 1970s of the fiberoptic endoscope, it was increasingly common to fi nd good, well-fi xed sections from gastrointestinal tissue. Prior to this, it was unusual for a pathologist to see good histological sections from any part of the stomach that was not post mortem. In 1979, after examining a hematoxylin and eosin-stained section of a stomach biopsy from a man with severe gastritis, Warren noticed a thin blue line on the surface of the tissue. When he increased magnification, he thought he saw bacteria.