MAURICE H. RICHARDSON 51 



ask the physiologist to tell me whether I can cut down 

 upon the bleeding vessel and secure it without causing the 

 patient's death from the operation itself? Will the remedy 

 be more dangerous than the disease ? 



(/) The possibility of repairing damaged arteries and 

 veins, the tying of which would necessarily be fatal. A 

 wound in the innominate vein, for example, closed by 

 tying that vein, would be probably fatal ; closed without 

 stopping the circulation through it, the patient would live. 

 Many experimental investigations are necessary to deter- 

 mine the possibility and advisability of suturing these ar- 

 teries and veins, the ligation of which would cause death 

 of the parts affected. 



(3) Experiments upon the abdominal organs. 

 - Although so much has been accomplished already in 

 abdominal surgery, thanks to the quick application which 

 surgeons have made of the truths of physiological demon- 

 stration, much remains to be learned. We wish to know, 

 among a great variety of things : 



(V) How to divert the blood stream around the liver in 

 cases of obstruction to the portal vein. Is a direct com- 

 munication between the main portal trunk and the inferior 

 vena cava a feasible operation? I, for one, should say that 

 the surgeon who tries it first on the human being will cause 

 the death of his patient. Experiments upon animals will 

 demonstrate whether this conception is absurd or not. To 

 perform such an operation upon human beings would, 

 however, be no more regardless of human life than to 

 forbid the demonstration of its feasibility upon the lower 

 animals. 



(b) How much of the digestive tract can be removed 

 from a mammal without permanent and hopeless impair- 

 ment of the digestive function. 



(V) What and how much can be done to the urinary 

 tract in the extirpation of disease? What is the course 



