Word: dragstedt
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Problem of Choice. Not until 1943 was a more elegant and rational attack on ulcers adopted. Since the stomach-wall cells are activated by the vagus nerves (which explains why stress or emotional upsets can trigger the ulcer process), Chicago's Dr. Lester R. Dragstedt figured that cutting the vagus nerves would cut down the acid output. His operation, "vagotomy," is not as simple as it sounds: surgeons often have difficulty finding and cutting all the nerve fibers in the bunch. And by itself, vagotomy is not consistently effective. So vagotomy has been combined with hemigastrectomy (second diagram...
...stomach operations devised between 1886 and the mid-1900s. says he, made many "digestive cripples." may have caused more ulcers than were ever cured, and killed too many patients. The first great advance in ulcer treatment, says Dr. Moore, came in 1943, when Chicago's Dr. Lester R. Dragstedt reported that cutting the vagus nerves (vagotomy) would keep the stomach from producing the excess acid that eats a hole in the wall of the duodenum. Dr. Moore's prescription for a duodenal ulcer severe enough to require surgery: Cut both vagus nerves, but cut out no part...
Vagotomy, the most popular of all, is the vagus nerve operation for ulcers, developed by Chicago's Dr. Lester R. Dragstedt (TIME, Aug. 26). Some 2,000 vagotomies have already been performed in the U.S.; Dr. Dragstedt is credited with 300. Properly done, the operation seems to be generally successful in stopping certain ulcers of the small intestine (Dr. Dragstedt does not recommend it for stomach ulcers...
Convention delegates showed plenty of interest in vagotomy, the nerve-cutting operation developed by Chicago's Dr. Lester R. Dragstedt (TIME, Aug. 26), which is currently popular among ulcer specialists. But even that new hope was dampened by Dr. Russell S. Boles of the Philadelphia General Hospital. Said he: "While it is too soon to form conclusions about this operation, it is not too soon to . . . protest against . . . a mass experiment on human beings that is fraught with potentially serious and permanent disabilities." Dr. Boles's warning: the vagus operation, which partially paralyzes the stomach, may produce diarrhea...
After a vagus operation, ulcers heal rapidly, the stomach quiets down and the patient leaves the hospital within twelve days. At Massachusetts General Hospital, Surgeon Francis D. Moore reported that vagotomy is especially effective for young or middle-aged men with a long history of peptic ulcers. Nonetheless, Drs. Dragstedt, Moore, et al., advise the operation only after diet and other treatments have failed. For nervous stomachs and the "tensions and strains of modern life," says Dr. Dragstedt, preventive psychoanalysis may be better than nerve-cutting...