CONGENITAL PERICARDIAL DEFECTS

Abstract

Congenital pericardial defects are among the most uncommon of reported cardiac anomalies.In 1925 Moore was able to find 64 references to pericardial defects, but a detailed re-examination of the records by Southworth and Stevenson in 1938 reduced the number of confirmed cases in man to 52 and 7 of these occurred in monsters.They added another case to this series, and in a footnote to their paper referred to the case described by Dahl (1937) in which, however, a traumatic or pathological basis for the defect could not be definitely excluded: their review did not include Ladd's (1936) case.The purpose of this paper is to record the findings in two additional specimens.One is of especial interest in that the defect was directly responsible for the death of the patient Such a result has been recorded on one previous occasion only.It is not proposed to review the literature in any detail since this has already been com-