Classic articles in colonic and rectal surgery. A new method of excising the two upper portions of the rectum and the lower segment of the sigmoid flexure of the colon -- by H. Widenham Maunsell.

H. W. Maunsell was born in Dublin in 1847 and obtained his degree from the College of Surgeons in 1867. He went to Melbourne the following year and became resident medical officer at the Melbourne Hospital. Following this appointment he took a similar post in Hokitika, New Zealand. After a short period of private practice he returned to Europe, receiving his M.D. degree at his old University in 1876. He returned to New Zealand, settling at Dunedin, and ultimately held the post of honorary surgeon to that hospital. In 1892 he reemigrated to the South Kensington section of London, devoting his efforts to writing, lecturing and illustrating. He was quite well known as a very fine artist and supplemented his surgical lectures with his own beautifully illustrated drawings. He was an innovative surgeon and is credited with original concepts in the technique of intra-abdominal hysterectomy. He was elected to the fellowship of the British Gynecological Society in 1889, and was appointed a Councillor in 1893. The article which is reproduced in this Classics section represents one of the earliest descriptions of the abdomino-anal pull-through procedure for carcinoma of the rectum. It was said that "the Maunsell Method will be at least more frequently employed, if it does not eventually displace the other procedure, i.e., Murphy's operation for intestinal anastomosis." Maunsell died on February 21, 1985, from bronchitis following influenza, at the age of 48.