Count sponges and instruments

Abdominal surgery involves special anxieties, and one of the worst is the fear that a forceps, sponge, or other foreign body has been left behind in the peritoneum after closure of the abdominal wound. Dr. Neugebauer of Warsaw has published a monograph on this terrible accident which will not reassure us. He classifies 101 cases, so that many operators are laudably candid, whilst necropsies tell terrible tales. In 38 cases the foreign body was only found at the …