Torsion of the gallbladder is a rare condition. I have been able to find only two American reports, that of Wendel in the Annals of Surgery for 1898, and that of Cramp in the Medical Record for Jan. 16, 1915.
Most of the cases reported have been published in the British and German journals. In Kehr's "Chirurgie der Gallenwege," published in 1913, five cases of complete torsion are mentioned: those of Mühsam, Nehrkorn, Mayer, Fischer and Kubig. He evidently had not looked outside the German literature.
It is necessary to distinguish between partial and complete torsion. Sutter reports one case of complete torsion and two cases of incomplete torsion. The reports of Aladar Fischer, Asteriades and Seefisch discuss incomplete torsion, with which I am not directly concerned in this article. Clinically, there is a sharp distinction between the two types. In complete torsion there is strangulation of the blood supply