Injuries of the liver whether blunt or penetrating in nature are occurring with increasing frequency and severity. In spite of this, the average surgeon will not be called upon to care for more than an occasional patient with such an injury. Estes1 pointed out in 1953, when making the annual oration on trauma before the American College of Surgeons, that unless the individual surgeon has had war experience in the therapy of abdominal trauma he is not likely to avoid the pitfalls that beset attempts at successful treatment of these lesions.
The present study consists of, first, an analysis of my personal experience with wounds of the liver seen in civilian practice; second, a review of the liver-injury cases admitted to a city-county general hospital during the last 10 years (1944 to 1954, 81 cases), and, third, a report prepared at the close of the last war for the