Effect of multiple stress procedures on monkey gastroduodenal mucosa.

Early work using the monkey as subject in behavioral experiments found that chronic, perforating duodenal ulcers could develop. In our own experiments, we were unable to reproduce this finding but did observe the regular occurrence of self-limited lesions in areas of the gut susceptible to chronic ulcer formation in man. Of the three lesions we examined histologically, we found that two of them consisted of foci of gastric metaplasia, lesions found in man in association with dyspepsia and ulcer disease. We also noted that these subjects were delivering normal amounts of hydrogen ion to their duodenums, while subjects with gastric lesions had suppressed entry rates into the duodenum. We thus hypothesized that the combination of stress plus normal rate of entry of hydrogen ion into the duodenum had produced the gastric metaplastic changes.