The literature of mesenteric vascular occlusion was extensive even before the turn of the century. Shortly after Tiedemann281 reported the first clinical case of superior mesenteric artery occlusion in 1843, Virchow287 and Litten186 independently reported additional cases. By 1875, there were already two collective reviews in the literature, those of Litten186 and Faber.102 By 1895, 50 reported cases were collected by Elliot,97 who analyzed the diagnostic and therapeutic information previously delineated by Gerhardt120 in 1863 and Kussmaul164 in 1864.
Admirable experimental work, too, was done before 1900. Experimental occlusions of the mesenteric vessels were brilliantly studied by a long list of investigators whose names today are meaningful only to the scholar.*
By 1904, Jackson et al148 were able to summarize the subject in an authoritative manner, and added 26 cases to the existing literature. A more extensive compilation appeared a decade