In the West Riding of Yorkshire, as elsewhere, the incidence in the community of pouches opening between the ascending and horizontal fibers of the inferior constrictor of the pharynx is about 1 in 100,000.
Such formations are probably atavistic in origin. Van den Wildenberg1 recalls that similar peculiarities have been demonstrated in certain mammals, such as elephants and camels: many problems concerning man's vertebrate inheritance remain to be elucidated as science unfolds.
In 1767, Ludlow2,3 first described a bag formed in the pharynx. For long afterwards there was every justification for medical men to advise against operative intervention, despite the miseries of requrgitation and the extremities of starvation to which the patients were condemned. The first successful excision was performed by Wheeler4,5 in 1886. Mortality remained high. The twostage operation of Goldmann6 in 1907 and the diverticulopexy of Hill7 in 1926 are foothills, bearing beacons