3 A Series of Engravings, accompanied with Explanations, etc., London, 1799.
A valuable account of the symptoms of gastric ulcer was given by John Abercrombie in 1824.4 Nearly all of the symptoms now recognized as belonging to this affection may be found in his article. He knew the latent causes of the disease, the great diversity of symptoms in different cases, and the modes of death by hemorrhage, by perforation, and by asthenia. He regarded ulcer simply as a localized chronic inflammation of the stomach, and did not distinguish carefully between simple and cancerous ulceration.
4 "Contributions to the Pathology of the Stomach, the Pancreas, and the Spleen," Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ., vol. xxi. p. 1, Jan. 1, 1824. See also, by the same author, Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of the Stomach, etc.—an excellent work which passed through several editions.
Cruveilhier,5 in the first volume of his great work on Pathological Anatomy, published between the years 1829 and 1835, for the first time clearly distinguished ulcer of the stomach from cancer of the stomach and from ordinary gastritis. He gave an authoritative and full description of gastric ulcer from the anatomical, the clinical, and the therapeutical points of view.
5 J. Cruveilhier, Anatomie pathologique du Corps humain, tome i., Paris, 1829-35, livr. x. and livr. xx.; and tome ii., Paris, 1835-42, livr. xxx. and livr. xxxi.
Next to Cruveilhier, Rokitansky has had the greatest influence upon the modern conception of gastric ulcer. In 1839 this pathologist gave a description of the disease based upon an analysis of 79 cases.6 The anatomical part of his description has served as the model for all subsequent writers upon this subject.
6 Rokitansky, Oesterreich. med. Jahrb., 1839, Bd. xviii. (abstract in Schmidt's Jahrb., Bd. 25, p. 40).
Since the ushering in by Cruveilhier and by Rokitansky of the modern era in the history of gastric ulcer, medical literature abounds in articles upon this disease. But it cannot be said that the importance of these works is at all commensurate with their number or that they have added very materially to the classical descriptions given by Cruveilhier and by Rokitansky. Perhaps most worthy of mention of the works of this later era are the article by Jaksch relating to symptomatology and diagnosis, that of Virchow pertaining to etiology, the statistical analyses by Brinton, and the contributions to the treatment of the disease by Ziemssen and by Leube.7 In 1860, Ludwig Müller published an extensive monograph upon gastric ulcer.8
7 Jaksch, Prager Vierteljahrschr., Bd. 3, 1844; Virchow, Arch. f. path. Anat., Bd. v. p. 362, 1853, and A. Beer, "Aus dem path. anatom., Curse des Prof. R. Virchow in Berlin, Das einfache duodenische (corrosive) Magengeschwür," Wiener med. Wochenschr., Nos. 26, 27, 1857; Brinton, On the Pathology, Symptoms, and Treatment of Ulcer of the Stomach, London, 1857; V. Ziemssen, Volkmann's Samml. klin. Vorträge, No. 15, 1871; Leube, Ziemssen's Handb. d. spec. Path. u. Therap., Bd. vii., Leipzig, 1878.
8 Das corrosive Geschwür im Magen und Darmkanal, Erlangen, 1860. Good descriptions of gastric ulcer are to be found in the well-known works on diseases of the stomach by the English writers, Budd, Chambers, Brinton, Habershon, Fenwick, and Wilson Fox.