An undescribed symptom in peritonitis / by William Henry Battle.

  • William Henry Battle
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An undescribed symptom in peritonitis / by William Henry Battle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    4/8 page 4
    were normal throughout except where a small coil dipping down into the pelvic cavity was affected by the peritonitis described below. The mucous membrane of both the large and small intestines was healthy. There was a local acute peritonitis limited above by the cmcum and the lower part of the sigmoid flexure, affecting the whole of the pelvic cavity. There were recent adhesions between the rectum and bladder and much recent lymph in the neighbourhood of the caecum. There was much oedema of the sub-peritoneal tissue, which extended along the in- guinal canals on both sides into the scrotum. No cause for the peritonitis could be discovered after a very thorough search, which included an examination of the bones of the pelvis. The liver and stomach were healthy, as were all the other abdominal organs with the exception of the right kidney, which was somewhat pale and which had an appearance of some former inflammatory affection. Remarks.—The post-mortem examination confirmed the opinion which had been given as to the causation of the unusual condition present during life and also demon- strated the correctness of the explanation which had been offered. Some ten years ago I was called upon to perform an operation about midnight for a patient suffering from acute abdominal symptoms which had commenced when he was straining at stool at six o’clock on the same morning. His condition was very bad and it was im- possible to find out what had been the state of his urinary functions before the sudden attack of pain at the time mentioned, but he had been to his work on the previous day and was not known to have been ill. When the abdomen was opened in the middle line the sub-peritoneal tissue contained such an excessive amount of fluid that the possibility of a pathological extra-peritoneal rupture of the bladder suggested itself as the most likely cause for the
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3