Partial gastrectomy has in recent years been coming more and more into prominence in the treatment of duodenal ulcer. The all too frequent occurrence of marginal ulcer after gastro-enterostomy has led surgeons to seek some method of approach to the problem of duodenal ulcer by which the acidity of the gastric secretions could be reduced and the incidence of marginal ulcer diminished. The studies of Klein,1 Lewisohn and Ginzburg,2 Lewisohn and Feldman,3 de Takáts,4 Winkelstein,5 Crohn,6 Wilensky and Crohn,7 McCann8 and others seem to leave little doubt that after partial gastrectomy there is a definite reduction in gastric acidity.
When one attempts to explain this reduction in acidity, however, one is confronted with a great deal of conflicting evidence; before the value of partial gastrectomy in the treatment of duodenal ulcer can be determined, some more definite information as to its mode