THE IMPETUS to cardiac surgery, initiated chiefly by the work of Blalock,1 has expanded beyond the work on great vessels so that the field now has spread to involve intracardiac procedures such as closure of septal defects,2 repair of stenosed valves3 and resection of coronary infarcts.4
The early work of resection of portions of stenosed valves by Cutler5 and of dilation by Souttar6 gave promising results, but it was soon found that in the presence of deranged cardiac function with an enlarged auricle, the regurgitation which followed resection of valves sometimes precipitated a condition which was worse than that existing from the stenosis alone. While the stenosis could be relieved, the regurgitation precipitated a state of failure in most of the patients. The work of Samways,7 Brunton,8 Cushing and Branch,9 Bernheim,10 Schepelmann,11 Allen and Graham,12 Cutler, Levine and