Medicine: The Non-U Ulcer

Peptic ulcers (sometimes in the stomach but usually in the duodenum) are not as often thought, just a fashionable ailment of high-pressure, upper-crust professional people, a British researcher reported last week. Comparing occupations with illnesses in 280,000 clinical records of more than 100 general practitioners. Dr. William P. D. Logan found that in class-conscious England’s Social Class I, consisting mainly of professional workers, the men’s ulcer rate is only 48% of the national average. But in the lowest-paid, unskilled Social Class V, the rate is 116%. In a fluid society the effort to “keep up” may be stressful. But the English laborer cannot even start to catch up, let alone keep up. This leaves him with a heavy lump of resentment and frustration. If he has no outlet for these emotions, they may cause ulcers.

The professional classes had a higher-than-average incidence of high blood pressure, scoring 120%. but Jeeves outdid them with 147%. The perfect butler achieves his imperturbability. Dr. Logan suggested, at the cost of high blood pressure. So do hotel and restaurant workers synagogue keepers, baggage clerks and washroom attendants. “They are sufferers for the most part from other people’s impatience,” said Dr. Logan.