ACUTE PANCREATITIS (PANCREATIC NECROSIS)

The consistent frequency with which gallstones or disease of the gallbladder have been found in association with acute pancreatitis has served to confirm the belief that biliary infection predisposes to pancreatitis. Fitz, who recognized acute pancreatitis as a disease entity, was cognizant of a probable causative relationship between disease of the gallbladder and pancreatitis. In 1907, Egdahl found that gallstones were present in 42 per cent of 107 reported cases. In a recent statistical study, Schmieden and Sebening found that gallstones were present in 69.8 per cent of a series of 1,278 cases of acute pancreatitis collected from 104 German surgical clinics, from 1919 to 1927. That disease may be present in the gallbladder in the absence of gallstones in no small number of cases is evidenced by the number of instances in which cholecystectomy is performed in the absence of cholelithiasis. In 1919, W. J. Mayo stated that infected