Collected Papers of the Mayo Clinic and the Mayo Foundation

A new policy now governs the selection of material for these reprints. The volume is a complete reference record of all papers from the Mayo Clinic in 1924, but only those articles likely to be of general interest are reprinted in cxtenso. More technical or highly specialised articles are either presented as an abstract or referred to by their titles alone. This is an excellent departure, as it allows of fuller reprints of the more prominent papers of the year. Even under this arrangement over 200 papers arc reprinted, covering every field of medicine. We turn first to the section on stomach surgery in which department the Mayo Clinic, with its vast concentration of material, may justly be said to lead the world. One is struck at once ny the absence of the fierce controversies of some years ago on the relative merits of gastrectomy, gastroenterostomy, wedge resection and local excision. The position has now become stabilised and each of these operations has its sphere of usefulness recognised. That all the world now docs much the same operations for the same gastric conditions is a fact which strikes one when visiting the London clinics, and for this satisfactory state of affairs the Mayo Clinic may claim much of the crcdit. Mann has some interesting experimental work proving that jejunal uVer is due to the passage of gastric secretion unchanged into the duodenum and emphasising the need of continued alkalisation during the postoperative period, an important point which only seems to be properly appreciated in the Mayo Clinic, w lerc the gastric patients after operation are sent back to e Medical wards for dieting and general treatmen Balfour reviews the results of the gastric opera ions ?f recent years and shows that in duodenal ulcer ik Per cent, of cures are obtained, in 3.5 per cen . e is recurrence of !he ulcer, in 5 per cent, recurrence of haemorrhage. Removal of the gastric ulcer by excis 'f small, and by gastrectomy if large, is advoca cc, risk of these large ulcers being malignant being very real. Gastro-enterostomy is the operation of c oic ^"odenal ulcer, the end results of local excisio ?