Since the first observations made during the last century,28 considerable clinical and experimental evidence has accumulated to support the existence of a relationship between certain intracranial lesions and acute gastrointestional ulcerations and hemorrhages. This evidence was reviewed by Cushing in 1931 in his Balfour Lecture.5 He presented a series of patients with intracranial tumors who postoperatively had either gastrointestinal bleeding or perforation. This report stimulated a number of other clinical studies on patients with various pathological conditions of the brain and concomitant gastrointestinal lesions.11,24,32,37
The neural mechanisms involved in acute gastrointestinal changes have been the subject of investigations since Schiff29 showed in experimental animals that cerebral lesions were associated with gastric ulceration and perforation. This observation was later confirmed by other investigators.14,17,36 However, many of these lesions were not produced by the stereotaxic method, but by direct surgical procedures which caused damage to other