Dyspepsia in the middle ages: a reference in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (14th century AD)?

To the Editor, For contemporary medicine, dyspepsia ( literally “indigestion”) has become an umbrella term for a “symptom complex characterized by a predominant pain or discomfort in the epigastrium” and has been reported to have a prevalence of 5 to 40% in the population (1). Fresh research has also shown that >1/3 of dyspepsia patients test positive for H. pylori infection. Calculating diagnostic and therapeutical costs, a 2009 study demonstrated that the overall financial impact of dyspepsia amounted to 18.4 billion USD, while a study of seven years earlier had indicated a cost impact of 1 billion GBP in the United Kingdom alone (2). Consequently, this gastrointestinal condition significantly contributes to the general health burden.