THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE TREATMENT OF GASTRIC AND DUODENAL ULCERS

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Abstract
The final decision as to the choice of a surgical procedure for the cure of gastric and duodenal ulcers must rest at present on the empirical observations of our statistical studies. That operation is best which gives the best results in the largest number of cases and which can be performed with a low mortality. Such a purely empirical attitude is forced on us by our lack of knowledge both of the normal and the pathologic physiology of the stomach and of the etiology of the lesion we attempt to treat. But at the same time this method, though necessary at present, is not the ideal scientific attitude, which seeks rather to base its procedures on demonstrable truths. The numerous studies, on man and the lower animals, striving steadily to establish those facts which will permit us rationally to conceive and carry out our surgical procedures are slowly beginning to