Intestinal Obstruction

Abstract

Intestinal obstruction remains a serious clinical challenge, and this book provides a modern view of the subject, including reports of contemporary research. The author, Professor Harold Ellis of Westminster Hospital, London, is familiar to surgeons throughout the world. He supplements his extensive personal experience with contributions from others, mostly from his own hospital staff. For example, he has contributions from his radiologists and a separate section on obstruction in neonates and children. This 356-page monograph deals both with common causes of obstruction, such as ileus, hernia, tumor, and adhesions, and also with more esoteric lesions, such as vascular insufficiency and pseudo-obstruction of the colon. Professor Ellis discusses the increasing incidence of postoperative adhesions as the leading cause of intestinal obstruction. In a typically scholarly fashion, he quotes his own research experience in the production of postoperative adhesions, but in a delightful style, he exhorts us not to damn all intraperitoneal