‘The gut war’

Abstract

Hospital admission and mortality statistics suggested that peptic ulcer reached a peak prevalence in the mid-1950s. During the Second World War, against this background of serious and common pathology, an epidemic of dyspepsia afflicted both service personnel and civilians alike. In the absence of reliable diagnostic techniques, physicians struggled to distinguish between life-threatening illness and mild, temporary disorders. This article explores the context in which non-ulcer stomach conditions flourished. At a time when fear was considered defeatist and overt psychological disorder attracted stigma, both soldiers and civilians exposed to frightening events may have unconsciously translated their distress into gastrointestinal disorders. While the nature of army food was initially identified as the cause of duodenal ulcer in servicemen, the pre-war idea that conscientious and anxious individuals were at high risk gathered support and fed into post-war beliefs that this was a stress-related illness. Diet continued to be employed as a means of management at a time when the nation was preoccupied by food because of the constraints imposed by rationing. The peptic ulcer phenomenon set much of the medical agenda for the war years and conflicted with the commonly held view that the British people had never been healthier.

Rethinking the History of Peptic Ulcer Disease: from digital textual analysis to declining research programs

“…2 Sources include: two articles on the history of abdominal illness in Britain during WWII by professional historians of medicine (Jones, 2012;Miller, 2010); an MD thesis in the history of medicine by Pollock (2014), which comprises a chapter on the history of etiological theories until 1960s; a historical overview of 'germ theory' research until Palmer's paper (Kidd and Modlin, 1998a); a critique of the biopsychosocial model with PUD as a case study (Davey Smith, 2005). The authors of the last two publications are medical practitioners and were included to represent two different interpretations of factors leading to the abandonment of the 'germ theory'.…”

‘Containment, delay, mitigation’: waiting and care in the time of a pandemic

“…Of course, the archive tells a more complex story of the reality of the waiting during World War II than a straightforward narrative of resolve and ‘pulling together’. Although admissions to psychiatric hospitals declined in 1940 in comparison to 1939 ( Jones, 2012 , p.31), the detailed report of the psychological effects of bombing in the city of Hull ( Burney, 2012 ), for instance, demonstrated that experiences of fear and anxiety produced considerable and lasting trauma, if not total civilian collapse. Many people did make good use of the call to communal action, however: some by taking on roles on the Home Front explicitly associated with the war effort; others working at living on and getting on through domestic practices in which a relationship to an imaginable near future was maintained.…”

Rethinking the History of Peptic Ulcer Disease: from digital textual analysis to declining research programs

“…3 Sources include: two articles on the history of abdominal illness in Britain during WWII by professional historians of medicine (Jones, 2012;Miller, 2010); an MD thesis in the history of medicine by Pollock (2014), which comprises a chapter on the history of etiological theories until 1960s; a historical overview of 'germ theory' research until Palmer's paper (Kidd and Modlin, 1998a); a critique of the biopsychosocial model with PUD as a case study (Davey Smith, 2005). The authors of the last two publications are medical practitioners and were included to represent two different interpretations of factors leading to the abandonment of the 'germ theory'.…”