ASPIRATION

1 January 1926

journal article
research article
Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in Archives of Surgery

Vol. 12 (1) , 187-211
https://doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.1926.01130010191009

Abstract

For the last fifty years attention has been repeatedly directed to the appearance of pulmonary infection, especially as a sequel to surgical operation. How important a rôle pulmonary complications in general may play is best illustrated by reference to statistics gathered from foreign and American institutions. It is to be expected that one in fifty patients operated on will develop some type of pulmonary complication and that one in 185 will die from it. Deaths due to pneumonia alone following operations of all types are approximately 0.5 per cent., while the morbidity percentages are approximately 1.12 per cent. for general surgery and 4.4 per cent, for laparotomies.¹ Cutler and Hunt² assert that 2 per cent, of all patients operated on, 4 per cent, of all patients who have abdominal operations, and 8 per cent. of all patients who have epigastric operations develop pulmonary complications. In reviewing the extensive

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