The Paediatric Approach to Tonsillectomy

Abstract

Tonsillectomy is by far the most frequent opera- tion done under a general anaesthetic, and in the last twenty years far more than one and a half million tonsillectomies have been done on public elementary school children in England and Wales. It is an operation not devoid of risks or even of mortality and, as the Journal of the American Medical Association (Editorial, 1947) (a journal by no means prejudiced against it) has recently stated, it ' should command all the respect of a major operation.' Its incidence, despite much criticism of mass tonsillectomy, is still excessive.