Pericardiectomy for Advanced Pick's Disease

Despite an increasing number of reports of cases, particularly from Germany, it remained for the work of Churchill and Beck to awaken interest in this country in the surgical treatment of Pick's disease. In 1929 Churchill¹in an excellent article on "Decortication of the Heart (Delorme) for Adhesive Pericarditis" reviewed the subject and added a successful case of his own. In 1930 Beck²produced Pick's syndrome in dogs by injecting surgical solution of chlorinated soda into the pericardiac cavity. He subsequently obtained a symptomatic cure in these animals by pericardiectomy. Beck also reported a successful pericardiectomy on a human being. The pathologic physiology of concretio pericardii, or callous pericarditis, commonly known as Pick's disease, need not be discussed at length, as it has already been admirably described by Rehn,³Volhard and Schmieden,⁴Churchill,¹Beck²and others. The essential pathologic change is a marked fibrous