CHRONIC CONSTRICTIVE PERICARDITIS

Abstract

Chronic constrictive pericarditis has received increasing attention in this country in the last ten years. White,¹ in 1935, brought together an excellent historic résumé of Pick's syndrome,² analyzed the clinical manifestations and recorded the experience which he and Churchill had had with surgical treatment—pericardiectomy. This treatment has been pursued most extensively in this country by Churchill and White,³ Beck,⁴ Blalock and Burwell⁵ and us. The syndrome does not appear to be as uncommon as was formerly thought to be the case. The recognition of chronic constrictive pericarditis is important, since it is a cardiac lesion which lends itself to surgical treatment. We have observed 9 patients in the last two and one-half years. Since one group of workers do not have the opportunity to see large numbers of these patients in a short time, we are recording our investigations of the circulation in the presence