Search

Recently there has been brought to the attention of the writer a case, encountered by Dr. C. W. Pollard in his practice, which presented the interesting and rather unusual condition of almost total deficiency of the left side of the diaphragm. Associated with and doubtless as a result of this, there were found some other minor anomalies, the most evident of which was a misplacement of some of the abdominal viscera into the left pleural cavity. It was obvious that these misplaced viscera represent a spurious hernia, due to an arrest in development of the left side of the diaphragm, rather than a true hernia due to a lack of diaphragmatic muscular tonus or development, for these viscera were not enclosed in a hernial sac but lay free in the left pleural cavity.On reviewing the available literature concerning the subject of congenital diaphragmatic hernia it was found that the