The annual General Meeting of the Society was held on 5th April 2006. The President was in the chair. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved.

The President then introduced the speaker, Dr Peter Down, Honorary Archivist of the British Society of Gastroenterologists. He spoke to the title: Some Unsung Heroes of Gastroenterology.

Dr Down described gastroenterology as a young speciality but on an old subject. The Egyptians, he said, regarded bowel infection as the source of all ailments. Enemas were the answer and in the case of the king there was a Keeper of the Royal Rectum.

John Hunter described cancer as a cause of dysphagia. He would insert a bougie to determine the level of a blockage, though he could do nothing about it [except dissect it later]. However if the bougie went down then it was a case of hysteria.

In 1898 the first balloon dilatation was performed via a silk bag blown up on a hollow bougie.

In the early 1900s the first x-rays were taken using bismuth by Dr Arthur Hurst who later founded the Society of British Gastroenterologists. Then came radical surgery with some remarkable successes.

Peptic ulcer was a known killer. In 1843 a paper was published describing 51 cases of death from perforation but it was not until fairly recently that Sir James Black’s discovery of the H2 antagonists and later Barry Marshall’s description of Helicobacter that something could be done medically. We must mention here Steer and Colin-Jones’ paper on the treatment of ulcers with Carbonoxalone that also described Helicobacter before it was formally identified.

He also described the history of coeliac disease.

The lecture was illustrated with Dr Down’s own beautiful cartoons.

The meeting then proceeded to the AGM the minutes of which will be read in April 2007.