Infarction of the Bowel in Cardiac Failure

A REVIEW of the literature on intestinal infarction soon discloses that in a significant proportion of cases the cause of the infarction is not ascertained.1 Not infrequently the physician believes that a thrombus or embolus had actually been present but was lost or dislodged during the post-mortem examination.1 (An unfortunate but frequently convenient excuse for this mysterious disappearance is the assumed ineptness of the resident.) So often has this question arisen that a few pathologists request that the attending physicians witness the dissection of the mesenteric vessels to convince them that in some cases no vascular occlusion has in fact . . .