RT Journal
A1 RIVERS AB
T1 THe importance of cancer as a cause of chronic dyspepsia
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1939
FD September 23
VO 113
IS 13
SP 1188
OP 1192
DO 10.1001/jama.1939.02800380006002
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1939.02800380006002
AB Dyspepsia is one of the most frequent causes of man's unhappiness. Dispensers of nostrums, well aware of this fact, are growing rich from the sale of injudiciously recommended medications which allegedly return such sufferers surely and promptly to gastronomic happiness. Persons with chronic dyspepsia who inadvertently persist in self treatment or who continue to apply therapeutic measures advised by nonprofessional medicine venders, despite continuation of symptoms, may be carrying on a dangerous experiment. Not infrequently, such patients are eventually found to harbor diseases which could have been cured if diagnosed earlier. Failure to recognize gallstones or peptic ulcer as the cause of a patient's complaint is a lamentable error; failure to detect the presence of a cancer is fatal to the life of the person who harbors such a lesion. There are some instances in which mistaken diagnoses, although prolonging the patient's suffering, do not seriously jeopardize life. Not so