GASTROINTESTINAL HORMONES IN THE PRODUCTION OF PEPTIC ULCER.

Abstract

THE ETIOLOGY OF PEPTIC ULCER remains a mystery. The search for the cause has been and continues to be an exciting hygeria. The study of patients with the common garden variety of peptic (ie duodenal) ulcer has taught us frustratingly little other than that in most of the victims there is hypersecretion of acid and pepsin. However, in the experimental laboratory it has been possible to produce ulcers in animals (dogs) which do not ordinarily develop them spontaneously, and nature in its own ingenuous fashion has produced ulcers in man in association with a variety of other conditions—all of which may, with continued study and keener insight, shed some light on the vexing problem of ulcerogenesis. This presentation will concern itself with the possible role of certain gastrointestinal hormones in the production of peptic ulcers and, I have, for the sake of broadening the scope of the subject, taken the liberty of including gastrointestinal humoral