The Courage to Swallow the Truth

In 1984, an Australian physician named Barry Marshall did something his colleagues considered reckless, perhaps absurd. He believed stomach ulcers — long blamed on stress, spicy food, and the pressures of modern life — were actually caused by a spiral-shaped bacterium called Helicobacter pylori. The medical establishment wasn't convinced. His papers were rejected. His theory was ridiculed. So Marshall did what few scientists would dare: he drank a petri dish of H.…