[The pulmonary ligament (pulmo-diaphragmatic ligament) (author's transl)]

The paper considers the appearances of the contour of the diaphragm and of the normal irregularities of the diaphragm. The hitherto existing opinion of ill defined or tented diaphragmatic outlines always being the result of pleurodiaphragmatic implications in inflammatory or fibrotic processes in the basis of the lung needs to be corrected: In a great number of p.a. chest roentgenograms of healthy persons a more or less obvious ill definition or tenting of the medial part of the diaphragma can be found, caused by a variation of the pulmonary ligament characterized by its connection with the diaphragmatic pleura. Ill definition and tenting of the diaphragmatic outline caused by this variation of the pulmonary ligament are called physiological alterations, contrary to similar pathological (e.g. adhesive) ones. Only if this anatomical variation exists a pulmonary ligament can be roentgenologically visualized directly.