No Acid, No Ulcer: Dragutin (Carl) Schwarz (1868–1917), the Man Ahead of His Time

Dragutin (Carl) Schwarz (1868–1917) was born in Varaždin (part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy then, northwestern part of Croatia today). As many Croats of the period he enrolled in the Vienna School of Medicine and graduated in 1891. After spending some time in a few clinics of the Monarchy, he returned to his homeland in 1895. Named the primary physician of the surgical department of Charity Brothers’ Hospital in Zagreb, he motivated lively activities there and became the prominent member of the medical community. Apart from his impressive surgical work, Carl Schwarz is primarily remembered for his dictum ‘No acid, no ulcer’ (1910) which was proven to be true in the decades that followed. This short editorial aims at recalling those visionary observations ever inviting and challenging further investigations.