It was a campaign and everyone was against me. But I knew I was right because I actually had done a couple of years' work on it. When I was criticized by gastroenterologists, I knew that they were mostly making their living doing endoscopies on ulcer patients. So I thought to myself, I'm going to show you guys, knowing that, in a few years from now you'll be saying, "Hey! Where did all those endoscopies go to?". It will be because I was treating ulcers with antibiotics. - Barry Marshall
Since the early days of medical bacteriology, over one hundred years ago, it was taught that bacteria do not grow in the stomach. When I was a student, this was taken to be so obvious as to barely rate a mention. It was a "known fact," like "everyone knows that the earth is flat". Known facts can be dangerous, to quote Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery) - "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." - Robin Warren
When the work was presented my results were disputed and disbelieved, not on the basis of science, but because they simply could not be true. It was often said that no one was able to replicate my results. This was untrue but it became part of the folklore of the period. I was told that the bacteria were either contaminants or harmless commensals. - Barry Marshall
It was a campaign and everyone was against me. But I knew I was right because I actually had done a couple of years' work on it. When I was criticized by gastroenterologists, I knew that they were mostly making their living doing endoscopies on ulcer patients. So I thought to myself, I'm going to show you guys, knowing that, in a few years from now you'll be saying, "Hey! Where did all those endoscopies go to?". It will be because I was treating ulcers with antibiotics. - Barry Marshall
Barry James Marshall, AC, FRACP, FRS, FAA, DSc (born 30 September 1951) is an Australian physician, Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and Professor of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Western Australia.
John Robin Warren, AC (born 11 June 1937 in Adelaide) is an Australian pathologist, Nobel Laureate and researcher who is credited with the 1979 re-discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, together with Barry Marshall.
To support the WA Ambassadors for Life Sciences, the state contributes to the funding of an office, The Office of Nobel Laureates, which is located within the Claremont campus of the University of Western Australia.