GASTRIC CHANGES IN PERNICIOUS ANEMIA—A REVIEW: I. Pathology

THE CLINICAL features of pernicious anemia were first described by Thomas Addison 1 in 1855. In 1872, however, Biermer, 2 with no knowledge of Addison's account, described the same disease and gave it the name which persists today. Although historical credit is given to these two authors, and the disorder often carries the eponym, "Addison-Biermer" disease, it is probable that cases were first recorded by Combe, 3 of Edinburgh, as early as 1822 and by Hall 4 in 1837. The former, describing a patient with severe anemia, noted that the digestive tract at autopsy was firm and transparent, and he wrote that "it is probably owing to some disorder of the digestive and assimilative organs that its characteristic symptom has its origin." In 1860, Austin Flint, 5 in discussing Addison's anemia, voiced the suspicion "that in these cases, there exists degenerative disease of the glandular tubuli of the stomach," and