Selected Writings of Sir Arthur Hurst (1879–1944)

Selected Writings of Sir Arthur Hurst (1879-1944), ed. by THOMAS HUNT, London, British Society of Gastroenterology, 1970, pp. xiv, 218, illus., £2X00 (E1X50 to members of the Society). Hurst was probably the most original thinker of his contemporary physicians. Indomitable in the face of deafness and chronic asthma he was an iconoclast, destroying long-held beliefs based on flimsy foundations. Thus his work on radiography of the alimentary tract exploded the fiction of various intra-abdominal ptoses as being capable of causing symptoms, and his contributions leading up to 'The Sins and Sorrows of the Colon', arrested the widespread and harmful indulgence in purgatives. The still more noxious belief in intestinal toxaemia, which led to colectomy for conditions ranging from thyrotoxicosis to backache, he likewise demonstrated as a myth. His brilliant and versatile mind did not, however, include the power of critical appraisal of his sometimes hastily conceived theories. Recurrence of carcinoma in the remnant of the stomach he persistently asserted was a redevelopment of the disease arising from residual gastritis. His ingrained suspicion of surgery gave him an unduly optimistic view of the treatment of ulcerative colitis with anti-dysenteric serum, and of duodenal ulcer with medical care. He would not have been at home in the present climate of double-blind trials and statisticians. Dr. Hunt has succeeded remarkably in presenting a picture of Hurst by the painstaking selection of some 41 papers from 250 contributions, many in French and German, written from 1901 to 1944. The war neuroses, radiography and the colon will probably be regarded as the most permanent of a series of outstanding achievements. From those of us who knew and admired Hurst, and from all gastroenterologists a debt of gratitude is due to Dr. Hunt for a labour of love so efficiently completed. A. H. DOUTHWAITE