HUNTERIAN PEPTIC-ULCERS AND HELICOBACTER-PYLORI

Gastric spiral organisms were first described in man in 1939 and ident ified as Helicobacter pylori causing peptic ulcers in the early 1980s. Surgical specimens of gastric resections from 1939 showed H. pylori t o be present. Full-thickness sections of gastric mucosa from gastric s pecimens from the eighteenth-century Hunterian Collection at The Royal College of Surgeons of England were examined by histology for the pre sence of H. pylori. Four gastric ulcers and a section from an oesophag eal varix showed remarkable preservation of the overall architecture, but surface autolysis did not allow identification of the bacteria. Ho wever, the presence of lymphoid aggregates in the Hunterian specimens suggests that H. pylori may have been present before autolysis.