Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen.
- John Hunter
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on certain parts of the animal oeconomy. Inclusive of several papers from the Philosophical transactions, etc / by John Hunter ... With notes by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.
50/494 page 42
![* and its descent from the abdomen into the scrotum, would explain several things concerning ruptures and the hydrocele, particularly that observation which Mr. Sharp had communicated to me, ViZey that in ruptures the intestine is sometimes in contact, with the testis. I communicated my ideas upon this subject to my brother, and desired that he would take every opportunity of learning exactly the state of the testis before and after birth, and the state of ruptures in children. We were both convinced thatthe examination of those facts would answer our expectation, and both recollected having seen appearances in children that agreed with our supposition, but saw now that we had neglected making the proper use of them. “In the course of the winter my brother had several opportunities of dissecting foetuses of different ages, and of making some draw- ings of the parts; and all his observations agreed with the ideas I had formed of the nature of ruptures, and of the origin of the tunica vaginalis propria in the feetus. But till those observations were repeated to his satisfaction, and were sufficiently ascertained, he desired me not to mention the opinion in my lecture ; and therefore, when treating of the coats of the testis, and of the situation of the hernial sac, &c., I only put in this temporary caution, that I was then speaking of those things as they are commonly in adult bodies, and not as they are in the fetus: and at last, when I was conclud- ing my lectures for that season, in the end of April 1756, with a course of the chirurgical operations, [ gave a very general account of my brother’s observations, and showed both the drawing of fig. 2, which was then finished, and the subject from which it was made.” The following observations on this subject were taken from my notes, and published by Dr. Hunter in his commentaries to which I have added some practical remarks. ‘Until the approach of birth, the testes of the feetus are lodged within the cavity of the abdomen, and may therefore be reckoned among the abdominal viscera. They are situated immediately below the kidneys, on the fore part of the psoz muscles, and by the * Alberti Halleri Opuscul. Patholog., Lausan. 1755, 8vo., page 53, &c. } [Although Haller was in doubt as to the exact period of the descent of the testis, and in error as to the cause of that phenomenon, yet he accurately describes, in the original paper here alluded to, the original relations of the gland to the peritoneum and abdominal viscera, and the formation of the tunica vaginalis, and thus applies the facts which he had discovered to the explanation of the disease he was considering. « Herniarum, ni fallor, congenitaram modus hine elucescit, qno generantur, Patulus est processus peritonei sub renibus positus, qui exe pectat testem invitatque aperto ostio, atque eo deorsum ex solita lege pulso urgetur, Inque scrotum una descendit. Cum autem his in corporibus testes eodem cum Intestinis saceo omnino contineantur, nihil est singularis sive inexpectati, si this paper there are references to the older authors who had noticed the abdominal position of the testes in the foetus.] \](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33292292_0050.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
