Up until the mid-nineties, it was widely thought that gastric ulcers were caused by unhealthy levels of stress and spicy or acidic food. Although antibacterial medication was somewhat effective in the treatment of gastric ulcers, the wider medical community believed that no bacterium could exist in the highly acidic environment of the stomach long enough to cause these ulcers to manifest.
However, so convinced was Australian scientist, Barry Marshall, that the bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, was responsible for this common illness that he drank a petri dish of the stuff with the aim of developing gastritis, and treating himself with a course of antibiotics to prove his theory! With this brave experiment, Barry Marshall and his co-researcher, Robin Warren showed that antibiotics targetting H. pylori specifically were effective in the treatment of gastritis and in 2005 they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work.
