Ulcers in the Army?

By a new ruling, men who have had ulcers of the stomach or intestine are now admitted into the U.S. Army, provided they have had no symptoms for five years and have negative X-rays. This ruling worries gastroenterologists, who believe that ulcers are caused by nervous strain and that a man who has once had longstanding ulcers might get them again in military life.

In the issue of the British Lancet which reached the U.S. last week, Lieut. Colonel James Maclure Smellie, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, reported British experience with this problen. Wrote he:

"Digestive disorders are a serious problem in the Army. . . . 12.5% of all cases evacuated from the B.E.F. in France [in World War II] had a diagnosis of gastric or duodenal [intestinal] disease. . . . Whenever a diagnosis of ulcer has been established, the soldier should be invalided from the Army and returned to civilian life in the shortest possible time. . . . In civilian practice patients with gastric or duodenal ulcer obtain rapid relief of symptoms from rest in bed and diet, but in my experience such symptomatic relief is rarely encountered in military practice. . . ."

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