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I have concerned myself for many years with the treatment of varicose veins and have worked out, to my own satisfaction, a technique which, in my own hands, can achieve results which are better than those of my surgical results. The volume of work which inevitably followed such a development compelled us to concern ourselves with the aetiology of varicose veins. It was not long until we became painfully aware that much remained to be worked out, and that many fundamental and basic pieces of research work had never been performed. Fully recognizing the limitation of the individual and the swiftness of the passage of time, I sought the help of other people, and for the last seven years I have been discussing with younger colleagues many of the unsolved problems in this field in an endeavour to interest them in the subject. This book represents in a large part the work of these younger colleagues. It is their work which I am presenting and many of the chapters have been written in part or entirely by them.
The work on the anatomy and physiology of the pumping action of the foot was performed, and the chapter written by Mr. J. M. Pegum; the chapter on the history and the earlier work on the histology of recanalization by Dr D. E. Fitzgerald; the survey on treated patients by Mr. T. F. L. Keane; the studies on the development of the iliac obstruction by-pass by Mr. J. M. Doporto; the survey on the chronological activities in the compressed thrombosed vein by Dr N. G. Gallagher. I am indebted to Mr. J. A. Stokes for taking care of all problems in technology as well as for the section on the chemical activity of the sclerosant; to Mr. R. F. Lambe and Dr M. E. F. Henry for the section on hormones, and to Mr. R. D. Quill for the chapter on the clinic.
I am particularly indebted to Mr. J. C. Milliken for his advice and help and for re-writing many of the chapters with much correction. I an also indebted to Mr. J. Mulvaney and Mr. D. Smith for the photography and to Miss K. Daly for the secretarial work. Acknowledgements are due to the publishers of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, Cardiovascular Research and the Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery for permission to reproduce illustrations originally published in those journals. Finally I would like to express my appreciation of the encouragement and help received from Mr. Selwyn Taylor in the publication of this monograph.
G.F.