IT SEEMS quite apparent that the general enthusiasm which first greeted vagotomy a few years ago has abated considerably, and that it has become definitely limited in its application in some clinics and in others has been given up altogether. Moreover, the idea has become quite prevalent that the good results that followed its use were due to the gastroenterostomy with which it was usually accompanied, inasmuch as workers showed many years ago that gastroenterostomy alone was effective in approximately 85% of patients with chronic intractable peptic ulcer of the duodenum in which some degree of obstruction was present. In general, this reaction to vagotomy was not at all surprising, because in 1945 and 1946 almost everybody seemed anxious to try out the new procedure; the cases were not too carefully selected and studied, and many times the operation was undertaken by men not too well qualified to do this