An account of the last illness, death, and post-mortem examination of William Hey, F.R.S. / by Edward Atkinson, Consulting Surgeon to the Leeds General Infirmary.

  • Atkinson, E. (Edward)
Date:
[1896?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the last illness, death, and post-mortem examination of William Hey, F.R.S. / by Edward Atkinson, Consulting Surgeon to the Leeds General Infirmary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    consequence of the constricted sigmoid. The rectum is never ful and so becomes contracted, whilst the intervening portion o bowel, i.e., the descending colon and upper part of the sigmoic flexure, is gradually expanded until it assumes the form of a “ba^ resembling the stomach/' a condition probably resulting fron chronic retention of faeces extending over many years. When therefore the usual care was intermitted, which hac become so imperative a necessity, and the unusual strain of thos< three days’ journeyings had further taxed the already thin walls o the gut, can we wonder at the chain of events ushered in ffi the rigor on the morning of March io, and illustrated, at th< autopsy a fortnight later, by the discovery of two large ulcer perforating the attenuated pouch at the seat of greatest pressun —'u the lower part of the small, and all the large intestine ” (wit! the exception, I take it, of the rectum) in a state of purple con gestion approaching gangrene. The only surprise we feel is a the aged patient’s having survived so long. Before referring to the treatment, it appears obvious to remar] that intestinal pathology was probably at this date (1819) rathe hazy, to say the least; and that the diagnosis proposed above wa not in all likelihood recognised as a possible accident—-or i described as a condition found after death, it had not yet beei diagnosed during life. Most authors insist on intussusception being an accident o early life, and most common in infancy. That this is true nee( not be disputed, but that it does occur in adult life we now knov to be the fact. It must be allowed, however, that in the case o an octogenarian one would hesitate to admit its probability. Chronic obstruction there undoubtedly was, though neve complete, for he was dependent upon “ opening medicine ” t( keep him right—and even when obstruction became acute, i yielded to the torrent of cathartics constantly administered fo: twenty-four hours, and the bowels were “freely moved.” Tha the obstruction was not of a malignant nature, the evidence of it: long continuance is sufficient to assure us, even if there had beei no examination after death. What other diagnosis then remains other than what has already been indicated, except we are t( suppose several distinct attacks of enteritis—the first occurring ir