Gastric ulcer.

are present: hydrochloric acid, and progressive erosion of an area of mucosa by the digestive action of the gastric juices. Our understanding of this process makes a fascinating story, linked with the names of two famous patients, Alexis and Tom. Two hundred years ago five processes were said to occur in the stomach during the digestion of a meal. These were concoction, putrefaction, trituration, fermentation, and maceration. So vague were these terms that William Hunter remarked somewhat irritably, " Some physiologists will have it that the stomach is a mill, others that it is a fermenting vat, others again that it is a stew-pan ; but in my view of the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting vat nor a stew-pan, but a stomach gentlemen, a stomach." The first person to undertake research in this field was de Reaumurl who trained his pet buzzard to swallow and then eject a perforated metal tube containing pieces of sponge, which