This concise monograph traces the development of vagotomy for the treatment of peptic ulcer disease, from the therapeutic implications of Pavlov's studies and Dragstedt's contributions, to selective vagotomy currently being evaluated. The book includes sections on gastric physiology, applied anatomy of the vagus nerves, the effects of vagal denervation, postvagotomy diarrhea, and incomplete nerve section, all clearly described, and based on the author's own work as well as that of others. Much of the book is devoted to the present place of vagotomy in the treatment of duodenal ulcer, gastric ulcer, the pyloric channel syndrome, stomal ulcer, and hiatus hernia with esophagitis. Since this procedure is never performed alone except for stomal ulcer, but is combined with a drainage procedure, ie, pyloroplasty or gastroenterostomy, the title might more descriptively have been "Vagotomy and Drainage Procedures for Ulcer Disease."
Incomplete nerve section producing persistent gastric hypersecretion, inadequate drainage of the antrum,