It has become common in the last few years for doctors and the laity to refer to certain persons as being of the ulcer type. A number of articles and even a book have been written describing the ulcer personality. Yet we could not feel certain that the ulcer patients we saw belonged to a definite personality type and we found that others had also raised questions. Ivy,84 for instance, stated "In reading in the psychosomatic literature I have been impressed with the rather wide range of personality type which have been described as 'typical' of the patients with peptic ulcer, as well as the absence of a control group." We, therefore, reviewed the literature on the subject to determine whether the methods used in studying the problem seemed reliable and whether the investigators agreed on one specific ulcer personality. TECHNIQUES USED IN STUDY OF THE ULCER PERSONALITY Articles that