Incidence of Gastric and Duodenal Ulcer in the British Army in 1955

Abstract

No estimate of the prevalence of gastric and duodenal ulcer is entirely satisfactory. It has been generally felt however that there has been a great increase in the incidence of duodenal ulcer in the last three decades. In the first world war up to the end of 1915 (i.e. in 16 months), there were 109 medical discharges from the Army for inflammation and ulceration of the stomach. In World War II up to the end of 1941 (i.e. in 28 months), there were 23,574 (Tidy, 1943). Doll (1952) has reviewed the methods available for determining the true incidence of peptic ulcer ation in the community at large. National mortality statistics are unsatisfactory because the disease has a low fatality rate. Selection factors vary enor mously in various hospital services. He concluded that a population survey is the method of choice if the group chosen is typical of the population, and Doll, Jones, and Buckatzsch (1951) made such a survey, mainly in London. Individual medical documents are available for the whole British Army, which emphasises a suitably large population, and we have analysed the mor bidity from peptic ulcer diagnosed for the first time in 1955 in male personnel.