Congenital partial heart block.

Although congenital complete heart block is well recognized and has been fully reviewed, congenital partial heart block appears to be much more unusual. Howevev, a survey shows that several such cases have been described in America, but we have found only four cases recorded from this country. Whipham (1915) reported two, and Fleming and Stevenson (1928) gave an account of an eight-year-old girl with 2 :1 heart block associated with a ventricular septal defect and probably other congenital cardiac lesions. Wilson and Grant (1926) recorded the case of a fourteenmonth-old child with 2 : 1 heart block who post mortem was found to have atresia of the pulmonary artery, a large patent ductus arteriosus, and a common ventricle with only the rudiment of an interventricular septum. Apart from the rarity of congenital partial heart block, the interest of this case lies in the coexistence of the heart lesion with a second congenital defect-namely, fibrocystic disease of the pancreas.