The processing of sheepskin for use as a dermal collagen graft--an experimental study.

In search of a biological mesh-prosthesis, sheepskin was processed according to established methods in the manufacture of leather. The dermal collagen fibre-mesh of sheepskin was purified by a proteolytic enzyme treatment after which the skins were split, providing a split-skin graft corresponding to the reticular layer of the dermis. The split-skin graft was subsequently tanned with a buffered glutaraldehyde solution (1.

The Hartmann procedure: its role in acute complicated diverticulitis.

A retrospective study of 38 patients with Hartmann procedure for acute complicated diverticulitis. Two patients died. Continuity was restored in 30 patients (30/36).

Periampullary and pancreatic head carcinoma: facts and factors influencing mortality, survival, and quality of postoperative life.

From September 1983 to December 1985 40 patients from a total of 55 with periampullary and pancreatic head carcinoma underwent resectional surgery in our department. Following a policy of precise evaluation of each patient's operative findings, six patients underwent a Whipple duodenopancreatectomy, 29 patients underwent regional subtotal pancreatectomy, and five underwent regional total pancreatectomy. Five patients underwent vascular reconstruction of their regional vascular structures after transection of the invaded segments of their vessels and eight had positive lymph nodes.

Langenbuch's cholecystectomy, once a remarkably controversial operation.

Carl Langenbuch (1846-1901) has been appropriately designated the 'creator' of surgery of the gallbladder. In the surgical treatment of gallstone disease, Langenbuch advocated cholecystectomy in favour of cholecystostomy since he realised that the gallbladder should be removed not because it contained stones but because it originated the stones. In 1882, he successfully performed the first cholecystectomy in a 43-year-old patient.

Kimura's disease in the spermatic cord, an unusual site of a rare tumor.

Kimura's disease is a rare, but well-defined clinical and histologic entity, classified under the term angiolymphoid hyperplasia with eosinophilia. A patient with a tumor in the spermatic cord is described, presenting a unique case of Kimura's disease involving the spermatic cord.

Henri Hartmann, lord of the Hôtel-Dieu.

As assistant to Professor Terrier, Henri Hartmann (1860-1952) completed his surgical training at the Hôpital Bichat in Paris, where he was later to become Chief-Surgeon. In 1909 he was appointed Professor of Surgery in the Faculty of Medicine, and in 1914 he became head of the surgical clinic of the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris. It was in 1921 that Hartmann proposed the operation that thereafter was to bear his name.

A new surgical approach for the management of carcinoma of the junction of the main hepatic ducts.

In the present study we discuss our early results and some technical aspects of a new surgical approach in dealing with high-lying malignant biliary obstruction. After transection of the common bile duct we proceed through a cephalad reflection of its proximal end in a meticulous dissection of the intrahepatic biliary tree. During dissection we follow the intrahepatic course of the right and left portal vein, which leads us to follow the respective course of the main right and left hepatic ducts and to reach the levels of their subsequent consecutive segmental bifurcations.

The role of the Dutch in the introduction of Western surgery in feudal Japan.

A survey is presented of the introduction of Western surgery in feudal Japan. From 1639 to 1853, through fear of foreign influence, Japan's isolation policy withheld all foreigners with the exception of the Dutch, who were permitted to establish a trading post on the island of Decima. Western culture and science reached the Japanese exclusively through the Dutch on Decima.