CONGENITAL TRANSPOSITION OF CARDIAC VESSELS: A CLINICAL AND PATHOLOGIC STUDY

Congenital transposition of the efferent vessels of the heart is defined by Abbott1as "an alteration in the position of the two great vessels relative to the ventricles of the heart or to each other at their origin, so that they either spring from reversed ventricles, the aorta from the right and the pulmonary artery from the left chamber (complete transposition) or from the ventricles to which they normally belong, but in a reversed relationship (corrected transposition)." The cases of congenital heart disease with marked cyanosis referred to by older writers as morbus caeruleus are for the most part due to this condition, as cyanosis, as will be considered later in detail, is here of the most extreme and persistent type. This anomaly must be clearly distinguished from the type of transposition of the entire organ together with the vessels, so that it is in reality either a complete