As readers are duly warned in the preface, this is not a book on the roentgenologic diagnosis of individual gastro-intestinal diseases but a description and analysis of principles on which such diagnosis is based. Accordingly, four broad divisions of the text deal successively with (1) the lumen of the tract viewed in profile, (2) special folds of the mucosa viewed on edge, (3) pliability of the mucosa to peristaltic contraction, and (4) the pattern of the mucosal folds, all as applied to the examination of the esophagus, stomach, duodenal bulb, small bowel and colon.
In recent years continental radiologists, led by Berg and Akerlund, have written voluminously on the mucosal relief and its importance in diagnosis. Indeed, this feature has been exploited so energetically as to foster the impression that the method is wholly new. To correct this misconception, American writers have pointed out that the principle is by no