Stomach Irritants

Two London doctors, Arthur Henry Douthwaite and G. A. M. Lintott, have been examining the effects of certain substances on the stomach's wall, and last week in the Lancet they let other doctors in on what they had discovered:

That mustard severely irritates the stomach, that alcohol taken in small quantities does not inflame the stomach at all. Drs. Douthwaite and Lintott had noticed that many patients suffered heartburn after taking aspirin. They collected 16 patients who were willing to endure the discomfort of a gastroscope, gave them three tablets of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) crushed in one ounce of water. Through the gastroscope the doctors saw most of the 16 glistening pink stomachs turn at once to a "dusky red."

"Aspirin." concluded the doctors, "is a gastric irritant. ... If taken after food, or with milk, it probably has no deleterious effect."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.