Dear reader!
The manual on surgical diseases is brought to your to your attention and was created with the help of a collective of Department of Faculty Surgery and Oncology of Saratov State Medical University. This surgical department is one of the oldest in Russia. It was founded in 1912 by S.I. Spasokukotsky. S.R. Mirotvortsev headed the department for a long time. He became a founder of the faculty of the oretical surgery in Saratov.
Pledged by him, traditions of teaching were extended by following heads of the Department: professors I.M. Popovjyan, K.I. Myshkin, S.S. Slesarenko, A.S. Slesarenko, G.A. Bluestein, and S.V. Vertyankin.
This Department always has taken leading positions in the development of new directions in Russian surgery. Medical doctors, working in the department, engage actively in problems of gastric, pulmonary, endocrine, purulent surgery. Nowadays a great attention is devoted to application of modern methods of the treatment of liver and pancreatic diseases. The manual is a result of a long pedagogical work by authors, which started it under the direction of professor K.I. Myshkin, who had always devoted a great attention to the system of the faculty surgery teaching. Rapidly developing methods of diagnosis and treatment of surgical diseases demand of their adequate and timely reflection in manuals. We have tried to carry out these demands. Many original department's works are included in this manual.
Keeping in mind Russian surgical traditions and, in particular, Saratov school's teaching of Faculty Surgery, we aspired to devote a special attention to development of the student's clinical reasoning, which is based on close examination and analysis of complaints, anamnesis, physical examination of a patient in contrast to schools, which are based on "analysis of researches' results". This approach allows excluding rude mistakes in diagnosis and to select a right way from the diagnostic conception to the final diagnosis.