I have particular pleasure in introducing this publication by Gian Pietro Marzoli and Sergio Vesentini. Years ago they enthusiastically accepted my suggestion that they should take specific interest in the clinical and surgical problem of portal hypertension, and assess the proposals of surgical ex- perience with regard to this debated physiopathological picture. These thanks are all the more real because in this way the school's attention remained fixed on a subject that had already attracted it profoundly from the start - with Giovanni Castiglioni and Vittorio Pettinari as heads of the school - and then threatened to die away into general con- formism. In Italy "precariousness" is easily extended to the concept of school continuity. In Warren's proposal (1967) of "distal splenorenal anas- tomosis with disconnection of the spleno-oesophageal from the mesenteric district", I felt there was an intelligent at- tempt to solve all the basic problems, albeit in different ways. An attempt, that is to say, at alleviating the gastro- oesophageal circulation, thus avoiding* haemorrhage, and at ensuring that the liver would maintain the circulatory ef- ficiency with which it was still endowed. The spleen was re- tained, but there was reason to think that, by reducing blood stasis within its ambit, it would be possible to manage or alleviate any hypersplenism: not an absurd hypothesis if the Americans had sometimes noted in their material function- al and even anatomical reversion of the splenopathy after a simple portacaval shunt.

Introducing this monograph by expressing our heartfeIt thanks to all those who have contributed to its success may seem no more than a rhetorical exercise. However, at the same time we feel duty bound to add our sincere apologies, for we know that many of the dis tinguished authors of the various chapters have been hard put to find any relevant information in the existing literature. The plain fact is that very little has been said and written about pancreatic fistulas compared with other aspects of pancreatic disease. Why is this? Essentially, we believe there may be two main reasons: one practical explanation may be their relative rarity, while the other reas on is, as it were, "psychological," i. e., pancreatic fistulas tend almost invariably to be regarded as complications of an imperfectly performed surgical procedure. However useful it might be if we were to do it more often, it goes against the grain to public1y admit one's own mistakes. Ever since I (P. P. ) started practising in medicine, it has been my destiny and privilege to work alongside Professor Dagradi, the pioneer ofpancreatic surgeryin Italy, and to assist him over the years in something like 2000 operations on the pancreatic gland. Clearly, then, any complication due or related to such surgery however rare, has become part and parcel of my practical day-to-day c1inical experience and scientific interests."