WHEN a surgeon performs laparotomy and encounters gangrenous intestine, resection of the dead segment must be carried out if the patient is to have any chance for survival. It is of interest to report the following case of a 57-year-old man, from whom almost the entire small bowel and a portion of the large intestine were removed because of gangrene due to mesenteric artery thrombosis. He has survived, in fair health, for 23 months, with only the stomach, duodenum, 8 in. (20 cm.) of jejunum, and that portion of the large intestine distal to the midtransverse colon.
REPORT OF CASE
The patient, a 57-year-old Negro man, was in good health until three days prior to admission to the Methodist Hospital in Fort Wayne, Ind., on Jan. 26, 1953. His illness began after an evening of excessive indulgence in alcoholic beverages. The following day he noted generalized abdominal pain, constipation, nausea,