Previous communications have outlined the technique of cardiac catheterization as applied to the study of congenital heart disease and defined the variations in pressures and oxygen content observed in a group of control patients (1, 2). This paper sets forth the results of study in 6 patients with 4 varieties of congenital heart disease as examples of the type of information which can be acquired' by the catheter technique in such patients. OBSERVATIONS Patent ductus arteriosus Patent ductus arteriosus is a persistence after birth of the vascular anastomosis between the pulmonary artery and the aorta. While in the fetus blood flows from the pulmonary artery to the aorta, the flow is from the aorta to the pulmonary artery after birth, as Eppinger, Burwell, and Gross (3) have demonstrated. Case 1. I. G. was a 26-year-old woman. In early infancy she was found to have a heart murmur. She developed normally but was subject to palpitation, dyspnea, and fatigue on exertion. On physical examination, she was a well-developed woman without cyanosis or clubbing. Arterial blood pressure was 125/65 mm. Hg. The heart was enlarged to the left. There was a machinery murmur in the pulmonic region. The first sound at the apex and the second sound at the pulmonic area were accentuated. The lungs were clear, the liver was not enlarged, and no edema was apparent. X-ray of the heart (Figure 1) showed it to be about 20 per cent enlarged with prominence in the region of the pulmonary artery and with hilar engorgement. An electrocardiogram was normal. Venotus catheterization was performed, and Table I records the pressures and oxygen contents of 'This investigation was aided in part by a grant from the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, and from the Proctor Fund of the Harvard Medical School.

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