Opinions still differ regarding the effects of surgical removal of the gallbladder on the rest of the biliary system. The clinical importance of this matter urged us to a reinvestigation. It soon became evident, however, that the problem was too complex to be considered as a whole, and for that reason we chose to confine our investigation in the dog to merely one phase, namely, the morphologic.
In reviewing the literature, we learned that cholecystectomy is an operation three hundred years old. It was first performed on a dog in 1630 by the Italian Zambeccari. The first cholecystectomy on man was performed by Langenbuch1 in the "Lazaruskrankenhaus" of Berlin on July 15, 1882. The history of cholecystectomy is vividly presented, and the views regarding the effects of such a procedure are critically reviewed in Rost's2 paper of 1913. The problem has since been approached experimentally by a number