A clinically developed and prospectively verified therapeutic concept for acute intestinal bleeding is presented in this paper. Emphasis is laid on orthograde lavage likely to enable sooner and more effective use of diagnostic means and to provide optimal conditions for surgical therapy. Prognosis can be further improved by differentiated use of therapeutic endoscopy and early elective surgery. The effectiveness of this new therapeutic concept has been successfully verified on 81 patients, between 1975 and 1986. Lethality amounted to five per cent.