Considering its size and complexity, the small intestine is a remarkably uncomplaining organ—absenting, of course, the duodenum, which is a notorious troublemaker. Wisely, the editors of this monograph start at the ligament of Treitz. There are, however, sufficient pathologic conditions for the rest of the small gut to occupy 82 authors who wrote 43 chapters and ten minichapter commentaries for this book.
The editor of a monograph faces allocation decisions for each subject. The option chosen by these editors was to mention every conceivable subject, including some that are only tangentially applicable to surgery. This necessarily compromises in-depth coverage. Chapters on some of the more clinically significant problems are pared to the size of coverage in general textbooks.
The first section, on anatomy and physiology, is solidly written by experts, but because of space constraints, only eight pages, for exampie, are devoted to absorption and digestion, which are, after all,