Cardiospasm in the New-Born Infant

Neuro-muscular Incoordination at the Cardia in the Newborn

“…This change was present in four of the recorded cases. The development of pyloric spasm is the reason given in the cases recorded by Tyson (1926), Birnberg (1929, and in my Case 2. In one of Aikman's cases pyloric stenosis was certainly the cause.…”

“…He called it phrenospasm. Birnberg (1929) published three cases of cardiospasm. Segar and Stoeffler (1930) recorded two cases.…”

Cardiac achalasia in childhood

“…A repeat barium meal 4 weeks later showed a normal-sized oesophagus with no narrowing at the lower end. Achalasia in infancy Though cases of cardiac achalasia are on record in the newborn period (Birnberg, 1929;Segar & Stoeffler, 1930;Van der Bogart, 1933;Haas, 1941;Thomson, 1950) and in infancy (Hess, 1914;Bruce, 1927;Messeloff, Shulman & Buckstein, 1928), it was doubted whether this disease existed in infancy at all, particularly in view of marked symptomatic improvement with simple procedures like gastric intubation and administration of atropine. However, the report of a 6-month-old infant by Paul & Pallawela (1961), who had radiologic evidence of achalasia and who subsequently showed thickened muscle coats in the distal oesophagus, puts all such doubts aside.…”

“…Abt (quoted by Birnberg, 1929) commented on the rarity of the disease in infancy and childhood. Out of 690 consecutive cases of the disease seen at the Mayo Clinic, only twelve (1 72 %) presented in the paediatric age-group (Moersch, 1929).…”