Drip Cure for Ulcers

Good news for the millions of U.S. sufferers from stomach ulcers was reported to the American Medical Association last week. The best way to treat severe ulcers, according to Manhattan's famed gastroenterologist Asher Winkelstein, is to drip warm milk into a patient's stomach every minute of the day & night. A conclusive report on this continuous drip treatment, used with great success on hundreds of Mt. Sinai Hospital patients, was finally presented last week after ten years of experiment, by Dr. Winkelstein and his colleagues, Dr. Albert Cornell, Physiologist Franklin Hollander.

Chief cause of ulcers is excess production of hydrochloric acid, which erodes the lining of the stomach. (This abnormal flow of acid is usually produced by constant worrying, emotional upsets.) Standard medical treatment for ulcers consists of many small meals of bland, semiliquid foods based on milk & cream. Thus the stomach, frequently filled, has small chance to consume itself, and the ulcer, like other sores, gradually heals. But this treatment, said Dr. Winkelstein, does not go far enough. Between meals the acid continues its destructive work, especially at night, time of greatest acid flow in ulcer patients.

To keep restless stomachs constantly occupied, Dr. Winkelstein rigs up a quart-sized can high over each patient's bed, fills it with lukewarm milk to which a level teaspoon of soda has been added. One end of a long, latex tube attached to the bottom of the can is swallowed by the patient. The tube, which is very soft, and scarcely larger than macaroni, is easy to swallow, does not keep the patient from sleeping, can even be used in the day time while he sits in a chair. The milk drips into his stomach constantly, its flow controlled by a screw valve.

Patients with severe ulcers, said Dr. Winkelstein, must stay in bed for at least three weeks, are given no food, only constant drip treatment of three quarts of milk daily. Those who cannot tolerate milk are given a mild solution of aluminum hydroxide or phosphate gel. Once the ulcers start to heal, patients can have three good-sized bland meals a day, must use the drip for an hour after each meal, continue it until an hour before the next. They must keep the drip tube in their stomachs all night for many months.

Many of Dr. Winkelstein's patients were old men with severe ulcers of ten to 35 years' standing. Their excruciating night pains were relieved, and their ulcers disappeared, "rapidly and often completely." Great practical importance of the treatment is that it is cheap. Anybody can use it at home with an ordinary enema can for a container, a coat rack for a prop.

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