- What were the clear plaques d'Hérelle noticed in his bacterial cultures, and why didn't he dismiss them as contamination?
Gastroenterology and Digestion
The digestive system and its disorders.
- Why do patients with pernicious anaemia fail to absorb vitamin B12 from ordinary food?
- How did beta-blockers and H2 receptor antagonists change the treatment of heart disease and peptic ulcers?
- How has dysentery historically affected military campaigns more than combat itself?
- What was the prevailing medical explanation for peptic ulcers before Warren and Marshall's work?
- What symptoms did Marshall develop after infecting himself, and how was he cured?
- What bowel preparation protocols did Ben-Soussan and Antonietti recommend to reduce combustible gas before surgery?
- Why did researchers ask appendicitis patients about pain over speed bumps on the way to hospital?
- Why is diagnosing appendicitis harder than textbook descriptions suggest?
- Why did Akira Horiuchi choose to perform colonoscopies on himself rather than on volunteers?
- What did Horiuchi learn about patient comfort and positioning during colonoscopy from self-experimentation?
- What did Patricia Yang's team find in the wombat's intestinal tissue that explains the cube shape?
- How did constipation measurably affect scorpion courtship success and reproduction?
- Why does the thin, highly vascularised intestinal wall make rectal oxygen absorption physiologically possible?