The detailed operative techniques, described briefly in the text and profusely illustrated, are those of the chief of neurosurgery at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. After the topography of the normal anatomy is shown, distortions due to the lesion are pictured, and step-by-step details make the procedures clear. Would that the living structures were as well delineated!
The arrangement is by anatomical location and approach, not primarily by disease. Thus, frontotemporal craniotomy is used as the example of how to open the head, and through this basic approach Kempe deals with aneurysms of the anterior portion of the circle of Willis, tumors of or near the hypophysis, basifrontal tumors, and cerebrospinal rhinorrhea. Variations in the operative approach depict attack on sphenoid wing meningioma, and frontal lobectomy. In describing falx and parasagittal meningiomas, the author emphasizes the necessity for crossing the midline with the bone flap, to permit dural sinus