GASTRIC AND DUODENAL ULCER IN THE BLACK PEOPLE OF ABYSSINIA

Abstract

Gastric and duodenal ulcer is generally regarded as a rare condition among Negroes.¹One of the standard systems of surgery²contains the records of the New Orleans Board of Health for ten years. In the decade cited, gastric ulcer caused 0.123 per cent of the deaths among the white population, but only 0.043 per cent of those among the Negroes; of 6,800 medical cases in white persons there were 58 (0.086 per cent) of gastric ulcer, whereas of 4,900 medical cases in Negroes there were only 2 (0.004 per cent) of gastric ulcer; i. e., there were approximately twenty times as many cases in the white population as in the black. A recent statistical summary of the Bellevue Hospital, New York, from 1904 to 1922 gave a total of 120 cases of gastric ulcer, of which only 2 were in Negroes. Forty-four cases of duodenal ulcer were recorded, none of