This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
This is indeed a Harvard Book, right out of the Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. The authors are both M.D., F.A.C.S. In his Foreword, Dr. Churchill declares the authors to be "experts" who are here trying to unify under one cover all that has been written about the esophagus in so many different articles, essays, and books on general medicine. He thinks they have succeeded admirably; so do we. They are a bit annoyed at the complacency of the general practitioner who fails to be alerted by the patient's difficulty in swallowing. This may, of course, be the first sign of serious trouble, but not always. In cancer, for instance, there may be no striking symptom until the condition is inoperable. In spite of all the "helps" at hand, early diagnosis of cancer is seldom possible, that is to say, diagnosis which permits early surgery. It is rather