ARTERIOVENOUS ANASTOMOSIS

Abstract

A controversy with one at such a great distance as Professor Coenen of Breslau must of necessity be rather unsatisfactory, yet I cannot permit his statements as to the impossibility of complete reversal of the circulation in a limb to pass unchallenged. Coenen and Wiewiorowski¹set forth a great array of experimental work denying the possibility of resuscitatiing an extremity threatened with gangrene by arteriovenous anastomosis. And in addition to their experimental work, they reported one case clinically unsuccessful. Following that publication, having done considerable experimental as well as clinical work on the subject myself, I collected and reported²all the cases of reversal of the circulation to be found in the literature — including six of my own — fifty-two in all. The evidence I gathered, while admittedly discouraging, had several points of interest, and, all things considered, held out hope of better things to come. Fifteen