The rectum and anus : their diseases and treatment.

  • Charles Bent Ball
Date:
[1887]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The rectum and anus : their diseases and treatment. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    health having much improved, she was made an out- patient, but soon becoming pregnant, she ceased to at- tend. The child she afterwards gave birth to was born dead. A year subsequently she was admitted into St. George's Hospital, having in addition to the previous disease of the rectum a recto-vaginal fistula; the sphinc- ter ani was divided ; bougies smeared with unguentum hydrargyri were frequently passed, and she was placed under the influence of mercury by means of the calomel vapour bath. Under this treatment she improved rapidly, and was soon discharged. After the lapse of another year, having in the interval borne another cliild, she applied at King's College on account of a rela])se of her previous condition, and having receiv^ed relief from the same kind of treatment as that before employed, she soon left the hospital. She subsequently became a patient at St. George's Hospital. The canal of the rectum was so much narrowed that only a catheter could be passed through the stricture. Her general health, which up to this period had been toler- ably good, began to fail, and suffering from sickness and diarrhoea for some days, she lost flesh rapidly. She was finally admitted into St. Bartholomew's. At this time she was in a state of extreme emaciation and misery, and evidently suffering from pulmonary phthisis, so that any expectation of afibrding her per- manent relief seemed hopeless. She shortly afterwards died. At the post-mortem, the points of chief interest were to be found in the rectum and colon. The anus of this patient did not present more than remnants and traces of the cutaneous growths, which are gene- rally significant of syphilis. In the rectum were found the results of widespread ulceration. The whole mucous membrane was destroyed, except one small patch, which was thickened and opaque ; the exposed submucous surface was lowly tuberculated, undulating, and uneven, and was thickened by infiltration. In