A study has been made of demographic and extragastric variables in a gastric ulcer population; a comparison has been made with a control community population matched for age, sex and social grade.There are 600–700 ulcer deaths annually in Australia, chiefly due to bleeding. Those who die of an ulcer have their lives shortened by 13 years on the average, and the yearly cost of ulcer disease in Australia is approximately $174,000,000.As has been observed previously, there is a predominance of females in the gastric ulcer population, with a male:female ratio not exceeding 1 at all ages; in other countries, the ratio is 2–3:1.Female ulcer patients take analgesics more commonly and male ulcer patients smoke more commonly and drink less commonly than controls. Gastric ulcer is not associated with any characteristic personality traits nor is it associated with emotional stress. Patients with gastric ulcer tend to occupy positions of lower social grade and show social incongruity. Ulcers in smokers tend to be situated in the lower third of the stomach, but alcohol and analgesic ingestion do not influence ulcer site.The complete healing of an ulcer favourably alters its course for at lest four years. If it has healed, smoking, analgesics and alcohol exert no adverse effect. Socially, ulcer patients tend to be single, and on diagnosis gastric ulcer is associated with considerable social disability; with medical or surgical treatment, this disability disappears six months later.With the aid of early endoscopy, intensive care ward supervision and planned surgery, the mortality from acute upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage due to ulcer has fallen, now being les than 5% overall and less than 1% in those less than 60 years of