Portal Hypertension, vol 14 in Major Problems in Clinical Surgery series

This is a convenient small volume of 283 pages that looks like the preceding 13 monographs in this series. The editor of this volume, Charles Child III, MD, also wrote most of the first monograph in this series, The Liver and Portal Hypertension. The instant success of that volume did much to establish the widely used Child criteria for evaluating operative risk. Now, a decade later, the reader might expect a revised second edition. Instead, this volume brings together the latest thinking of 17 eminent authorities. There are 11 chapters, each with a principal author who has made a different and notable contribution to the surgery of bleeding esophageal varices. Dr. Child has asked each author to write his current opinion of the subject. As a result, there is some inevitable duplication. Several authors discuss the pathogenesis of portal hypertension on the basis of their own investigations. Where such talented