Figure 13

Operative specimen with a benign ulcer of the cardia. These rare lesions can be found on the cranial edge of the corpus mucosa. The squamous epithelium of the oesophagus is visible in a whitish colour at the right. In contrast to Aschoff’s assumption of a secondary mechanical alteration of a cylindrical necrosis the ulcer at the cardia shows a funnel pointing in the opposite direction (against the peristaltic propulsion): a steep and overhanging edge at the corpus-side of the lesion, running shallowly out in a proximal direction towards the oesophagus. It mirrors the form of the typical gastric ulcer at the antrum/corpus-boundary (Fig. 2) and is correctly predicted by the differential haemodynamic model (Fig. 12).