[Treatment of inguinal hernia using Shouldice's technic]

The very high frequency of recurrence of inguinal hernia after surgical repair during the 30s led Earl Shouldice to devote his efforts to the study of this affection. In 1945 he opened an institution for the purpose of treatment of hernia, and since then a total of 130,000 operations have been performed. Progressive advances in the techniques used have enabled the relapse rate to be reduced to less than 1%, and the procedure used at the present time is described.