Amnesia in modern surgery: Revisiting Wangensteen's landmark studies of small bowel obstruction

Abstract

Before the publications of Owen Wangensteen and his colleagues in the early 1930s, bowel obstruction was almost always fatal, and its treatment was ineffectual. Patients rarely survived surgical attempts to relieve the obstruction. Although other investigators were active in the field, the understanding of the pathophysiology of obstruction belongs almost entirely to Wangensteen. In this commentary, we review Wangensteen's landmark studies of small bowel obstruction and how they shaped the treatment of this condition.