The publisher of this slim volume, the second of a series of three "Clinical Gastroenterology Monographs," states in the preface that the objective is to present up-to-date information in "major" areas of disease of the gastrointestinal tract. Certainly a difference of opinion could be generated concerning the major quality of this rather narrow subject, but there can be no debate about the vexing nature of this group of postsurgical complications.
The author's expressed purpose, to review some of these complications and to recommend treatment, has definitely been met. He resisted the obvious temptation to combine the text's informational material with detailed descriptions and illustrations of technical procedures, and he limited all but one of the sketches to simple line drawings. These are well conceived, illuminating only the anatomic configuration of the finished operations, an unusual feature for a reference text written by a surgeon.
On the plus side, there are