Hydrops of the Gall Bladder in a Fourteen-Month-Old Infant

Non-calculous distension of the gall-bladder in childhood.

“…A number of different suggestions have been made, but there is no reason to insist on a single cause for all cases. Those described by Lee and Englender (1953), Greenstein and Wesson (1954), and Codington and Platt (1958) in which there was complete or almost complete atresia of the cystic duct with signs of chronic inflammation suggest previous acute cholecystitis with fibrosis. In one of the cases described by Williams there was a hypoplastic biliary tract and the atresia of the cystic duct here seems to be due to a congenital malformation, possibly complicated by infection.…”

“…The other 3 occurred in infancy and presented differently. The case described by Greenstein and Wesson (1954) was a 14-month-old boy with a mass found on routine examination. Codington and Platt (1958) described an acute illness with fever, rash, and diarrhoea in a 22-month-old child and a non-tender mass was palpated in the abdomen: in both of them cholecystectomy was performed; as anatomical obstruction to the cystic duct was demonstrated, these 2 cases seem to differ from the rest.…”