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Richard Kelvin, MD
Long Beach, Calif

JAMA. 1968;204(4):340.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor:—

May I come to the rescue of your correspondent, Dr. Leon Banov, and also of your editor (200:331, 1967; 203:56, 1968)?

The sentinel pile was not described by Sir Benjamin Brodie, and so it is not surprising that the 19th-century textbooks on rectal diseases make no mention of it in association with Brodie's name. The little torment was, however, described by Sir Charles Ball, professor of surgery at the University of Dublin. He first propounded his theory as to its causation in cases of fissure in his book, The Rectum and Anus: Their Diseases and Treatment. He repeated the substance of this theory in his next textbook, The Rectum, Its Diseases and Developmental Defects, published in 1908,1 mentioning in the preface that his previous book was now out of date and withdrawn from circulation. I have been unable to locate copies of either the first . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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