In this brief discussion of recent medical history, I have tried to enable the reader to appreciate the dramatic improvement in health-care delivery, which occurred during the century following the American Civil War. In reference, one might compare the efficiency of transatlantic transport by sail to that of oceangoing steamships during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. All too frequently, one is tempted to believe that accurate diagnostic information and successful management of illness has been available for an indefinite period. One needs to only reflect on the deficiencies described in this volume, which persisted well into the twentieth century to appreciate the remarkably rapid evolution of medical care, which we regularly enjoy today.
While it is clearly not my intention to review the history of Chicago, it should not surprise the reader to find that a considerable portion of the early material in the book relates to the city in which the author grew up. Few cities of this magnitude can boast of at least fifteen miles of lake shoreline along with outstanding universities such as the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and the medical center of the University of Illinois. Chicago’s medical past includes such pioneers of surgery as Nicholas Senn, Christian Fenger, and John B Murphy. In the 1920s, neurological surgery was developed in Chicago by Percival Bailey, Loyal Davis, and Paul C. Bucy. Dr. Davis, chief of surgery at Northwestern medical center, was for many years the editor-in-chief of Surgery Gynecology and Obstetrics, a premier journal of surgical literature in America. Last but not least, the Chicago underworld was represented by John Dillinger, Bugs Moran (whose gang was massacred on St. Valentine’s Day), and the Mafia chief Alphonse Capone who, although responsible for innumerable deaths, was finally imprisoned for income tax evasion in the late 1930s.
A collection of articles on surgery selected from a survey of over 950 journals published in 1997 worldwide. Topics covered by the articles include: transthoracic oesophagectomy; transhiatal oesophagectomy; laparascopic antireflux surgery; needle aspiration cytology; strategies used to maintain gut mucosal barrier function; management of soft tissue carcinoma; endoluminal aneurysm; repair of aortic aneurysms; transplantations; and cost-effectiveness studies.
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