UPPER GASTROINTESTINAL ULCERATION and bleeding are frequent complications of massive thermal burns.1Many theories of the pathogensis of this disease have been proposed since it was first described by Thomas Curling,2an English physician, in 1842. While the original explanation which implicated hypertrophy of Brunner's glands has been largely forgotten, several new explanations have been suggested involving sepsis,1,3,4toxins,5hemoconcentration,6gastric hypersecretion,7and, most recently, adrenocortical hyperactivity. This latter explanation is most widely accepted today. Gray and associates,8in 1951, were the first to postulate that in stress the anterior hypothalamus secreted a substance which stimulated the pituitary gland to release corticotropin which in turn caused the adrenals to release cortisone. In 1953, Bothe and Magee9reported a case wherein multiple gastrointestinal ulcers followed a thermal burn and suggested again that intense adrenal stimulation may be a factor in the etiology of