To the Editor:
I read with great interest the article entitled "Mesenteric Artery Occlusion with Intestinal Gangrene" by Alfred L. Meier, MD and Peter Waibel, MD which appeared in Archives of Surgery 88:181-184, 1964. The authors are to be complimented on their successful superior mesenteric artery thrombectomy, and their discussion of the many problems involved in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with mesenteric artery occlusion.I would like to call your attention to two points, however, in the interests of preserving accuracy. In discussing the principle of the "second-look," the authors state, "to our knowledge Zuidema and Atwell were the first to describe this method. In Atwell's case the second intervention was performed only 12 hours after the first; the intestine had, meanwhile, completely recovered and no further resection was necessary. As for Zuidema, he did not translate his theoretical proposal into practice." Actually, the credit for proposing the