PROBLEMS AND PROCEDURES IN CRANIAL SURGERY

The problems of cranial surgery are manifold and the procedures correspondingly diverse. In this age of specialism it falls to the lot of some, whether because of greater opportunities unsought or natural inclination, to acquire greater familiarity with this or that particular field of endeavor. The surgery of the central nervous system, as that of other systems, requires not only a practical knowledge of the technic, but an intimate knowledge of the physiology and pathology of the structures to be dealt with. The successful and intelligent abdominal surgeon not only must have acquired dexterity in the performance of certain operative procedures, but he has familiarized himself with the physiology, normal and perverted, and with the pathologic aspects of the organs under consideration. It is not enough for him to be able to perform a gastroenterostomy, but he must be able to recognize, if not before at least at the time