ABSTRACT
Standing squarely at the interface between biomedical and behavioral science, the functional gastrointestinal disorders have always proven to be a fascinating and challenging area of gastroenterology. Improvements in technology in the late 1940s subsequently led to a series of classic studies in gut physiology. The development of balloon catheters connected to pneumatically driven pressure recorders led, for the first time, to realtime recording of colonic luminal pressure. The state of psychiatric classification remained by and large the domain of individual scholars until World War II, which provided a major impetus to better classify psychiatric conditions because of the large number of veterans who emerged from the war with psychiatric problems. The complex nature of the functional gastrointestinal disorders requires a spectrum of skills to produce advances in their treatment. Clearly, further development in classification based on the existing Rome criteria will be undertaken.
