IN the last few years, removal of the entire stomach has been accomplished with sufficient frequency and success to establish it as a sound procedure in certain cases of neoplastic infiltration of a major part of the stomach. In 1938, Lahey1 reported 8 cases with 3 deaths. By 1944 Lahey and Marshall2 were able to report 73 cases, the largest series on record, with an operative mortality of 33 per cent. In 1943 Pack3 reviewed 278 cases of total gastrectomy for carcinoma and added 20 cases from the Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases. The operative mortality for the entire group was 37.6 per cent; for the cases from the Memorial Hospital it was 30 per cent.
DeAmesti4 called attention to the fact that complete removal of the stomach may be followed by a fairly healthy existence. The reservoir function of the