The death rate from strangulated hernia throughout the land, has not diminished as it should have done in the face of modern surgery. Notwithstanding the mass of literature that has been devoted to this subject, and the fact that its importance has been fully recognized, from the earliest times to the present, strangulated hernia remains to-day as in years gone by, the dread of the average practitioner of medicine. Physicians who ordinarily act promptly and in the best interest of their patient, hesitate over strangulated hernia, trying first one thing, and then another, actually "frittering" away valuable time, and thereby sacrificing life.
This hesitation, and fear, not doing the right thing at the right time, perhaps has its origin, first, in the dread of former years, of touching any thing relating to the peritoneal cavity, and second, to the manner in which most of us were taught the anatomy of