Routine preoperative shunting of tumor patients is no longer common practice because many patients remain shunt free after tumor removal. Dias and Albright reported a series of 58 patients with posterior fossa tumors and hydrocephalus. Twenty-five patients were shunted preoperatively, 17 had external ventricular drains (EVDs) and 16 had no preoperative ventricular catheterization. Twenty-four of the 33 patients not initially shunted remained shunt free at long-term follow-up.

His volubility had left him at last, and he sank down wearily on my sofa. I felt that no words of condolence availed, and I let him lie there quietly.

[…] naturally the British aristocracy sympathized with the Confederacy, as one aristocrat with another, against a race of dollar lovers like the Yankees.

Where didst thou find, young Bard, thy sounding lyre? / Where the bland accent, and the tender tone?