The Incidence of Tonsillectomy in School Children

Abstract

The rise in the incidence of tonsillectomy is one of the major phenomena of modern surgery, for it has been estimated that 200,000 of these operations are performed annually in this country and that tonsillectomies form one-third of the number of operations performed under general ancesthesia in the United States. There are, moreover, features in the age, geographical and social distribution of the incidence, so unusual as to justify the decision of the Section of Epidemiology to devote an evening to its discussion.