MYENTERIC PLEXUS IN CONGENITAL MEGACOLON

SINCE 1886, when Hirschsprung 1 published a report entitled Sluggishness of the Stool in the Newborn, Resulting from Dilatation and Hypertrophy of the Colon, there have been many reports in the medical literature describing various aspects of megacolon. Generally, the name Hirschsprung's disease has been applied to the cases of reported in the literature but, as Finney 2 has pointed out, there were many reports of cases of in the literature antedating those of Hirschsprung. For this reason, in our opinion the descriptive term megacolon rather than the less precise eponym should be applied to these cases. Cases of are rarely encountered. 3 Perhaps as a result of the rarity of the condition, there have been few descriptions of the gross pathologic characteristics of megacolon. There have been a few reports 4 of single cases of in which the myenteric plexus was studied by microscopic pathologic methods. Except for the