SURGICAL DISEASES OF THE COLON:  COOPERATIVE MANAGEMENT

The strikingly successful end-results following cooperative management of cases of toxic goiter, of complicated cases of peptic ulcer and of other types of diseases requiring specialized preoperative and post-operative attention find a decidedly suggestive parallel in the group management of surgical diseases of the colon. The combination of resources made available by isolation of patients with surgical lesions of the colon into a single division under the combined management of surgeon and clinician has brought results as striking, in our experience, in the short length of time in which it has been employed, as the results obtained from any segregated group of unusual cases. Not only has isolation of these patients afforded individualization, with better selection of cases for different types of operation, but collective management in the postoperative period has been equally invaluable. Colonic conditions are complicated; they extend over a long period before the patients who suffer from