Is general practice in the wrong PLACE?

Abstract

In 1958 John Lykoudis, a dyspeptic small-town Greek doctor, cured himself with antibiotics. Convinced of infective cause he prescribed his multiple antibiotic formulation ‘Elgaco’ to 30 000 patients with ulcer.1 Barry Marshall, credited with discovering the bacterial cause for ulcers, acknowledges Lykoudis.1 The JAMA considered that the association between acid and ulcer was proof of causation and rejected publication of Lykoudis’s bacterial hypothesis. In 1967 a licence application for ‘Elgaco’ and, latterly, a scientific trial were also rejected. Lykoudis reflected that, ‘Their refusal to approve it is understandable, but their refusal to test it is not.’ Commerce preferred ineffective but profitable licensed proprietary symptomatic remedies over off-patent antibiotic cure. Finally acknowledged by the academic community in 1968, a Greek professional committee, blinded by certainty, ironically fined Lykoudis 4000 drachmas, presumably for being a nuisance. Marshall falls short of thanking Greek academia for safeguarding his Nobel …