AT ITS onset, ulcerative colitis should properly receive prolonged - medical attention. When it becomes fulminating or continues into the protracted, chronically disabling, relapsing and remitting form, surgical intervention offers increased hope for the survival of the patient and for reduction of morbidity. Because of the writings of Cave,1 Cattell,2 Garlock,3 Crohn,4 Bargen,5 Jones,6 Kiefer7 and others, the present tendency toward surgical treatment of chronic ulcerative colitis of unknown etiology is increasing. As a disease of indefinite or widely variable origin, ulcerative colitis is difficult to attack at its source. In the past the theory of infectious origin of the disease has been meticulously investigated,8 particularly by Bargen. Indictment of the diplostreptococcus based on inoculation of rabbits remains unproved as a causative factor in man, and application of this concept in the treatment of human patients has not resulted in any consistent or