UPPE R INTESTINAL OBSTRUCTION

Intestinal obstruction has long presented a series of complicated problems alike to the clinician and to the experimentalist in the laboratory. Persons suffering from even uncomplicated obstruction of the small intestine rarely survive unless surgical intervention takes place. A recent reviewer¹ has therefore asked anew why it is that a simple obstruction of the large intestine is compatible with life for a long time, while obstruction of the small intestine is rapidly fatal. The attempted answers to this question have been varied since it was first subjected to rigorous scientific analysis thirty years or more ago. Each succeeding formulation has failed to satisfy the requirements of an adequate solution, though it has often disposed of some debated assumption or physiologic fallacy.

Cooper¹ has attempted, in his studies in the department of surgical research at Cornell University Medical College in New York, to sift the established facts from the