EARLY RISING AFTER SURGICAL OPERATION

Early rising after operation was first advocated in this country by Emil Ries¹ of Chicago as early as 1899. Patients of Dr. Ries were made to sit in a chair for ten minutes on the second postoperative day regardless of the extent of the surgical procedure. The method was adopted somewhat later by Dr. H. M. Richter, also of Chicago, by the Mayos and by numerous other American surgeons. The Germans usually credit Heinrich Braun with priority in this field. At the thirty-seventh congress of the German Surgical Society in 1908 Kümmel and Krönig spoke enthusiastically of the method. A further impetus to early postoperative ambulation in this country was given by the report of Leithauser and Bergo,² in which the authors stated that pulmonary or vascular complications, dehiscence, hernia, thrombophlebitis or other serious complications failed to occur in a series of 436 operative cases. The nature of