ABSTRACT
John Thomson from Edinburgh described an infant dying from cirrhosis secondary to congenital biliary obstruction in 1891. Surgical exploration was advocated from the 1930s, and the terms ‘correctable’ and ‘non-correctable’ became prevalent to describe what could be done with a conventional surgical operation (e.g., hepaticojejunostomy). However, as most cases of biliary atresia were anatomically ‘non-correctable’, their outlook was poor and true survivors were exceptional.
