Surgery of the Gallbladder and Bile Ducts.

Abstract

In a paper read before the Academy of Medicine in New York, in December of last year, Mr. Mayo 1 dealt with the present status of the surgery of the gall-bladder and bile-ducts.The medical profession, he considers, has been somewhat slow to accept the modern view of gall-stone disease, and, although introduced at about the same time as the " appendicitis problem," as he calls it, it is far from as definite a solution.The reasons for this are that in gall-stone disease the patient is usually advanced in years, and often, by reason of degenerative lesions or excess of adipose tissue, not a good subject for operation ; and, again, death does not often come with that tragic suddenness which oft- times characterises appendicitis.But all of these con- siderations are of minor importance when compared to the major obstacle to a proper understanding of this common malady, which is by no means the innocent