title: Amnesia in modern surgery: revisiting Wangensteen's landmark studies of small bowel obstruction.
abstract: Before the publications of Owen Wangensteen and his colleagues in the early 1930s, bowel obstruction was almost always fatal, and its treatment was ineffectual.Patients rarely survived surgical attempts to relieve the obstruction.Although other investigators were active in the field, the understanding of the pathophysiology of obstruction belongs almost entirely to Wangensteen. In this commentary, we review Wangensteen's landmark studies of small bowel obstruction and how they shaped the treatment of this condition.
authors.affiliation: The Department of Surgery, Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre and the Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Faryniuk
authors.affiliation: The Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS.
authors.forename: Allan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: MacDonald
authors.affiliation: The Department of Surgery, Cumberland Regional Health Care Centre and the Department of Surgery, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: van Boxel
mesh_terms: D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007415:Intestinal Obstruction / Q000266:history* / Q000503:physiopathology; D010827:Physiology / Q000266:history