Volume 1
Catalogue of the Hunterian collection in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
- Royal College of Surgeons of England. Museum
- Date:
- 1830-1831
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Catalogue of the Hunterian collection in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![852. The rectum and vagina of a woman laid open; to show a stricture [or rather a contracted state] of the rectum, attended with piles; and a fistulous communication between it and the vagina. 853. The rectum of a man laid open. The lower part of the intestine, for about four inches in extent, is very much thickened, and of a scirrhous hard- ness ; the canal tortuous and contracted. The part above the stricture is much dilated. The posterior part of the bladder remains in situ, and shows the prostate gland to be unaffected by the contiguous disease. 6. Scirrhus and Cancer. 854. The bladder and rectum of a man laid open, showing both to have been in a deplorable state of disease. [The rectum is exceedingly thickened; and a deep ulcer communicates with the cavity of the bladder. Cancerous excrescences surround the orifice of the ulcer, and project into the cavity of the bladder just above the termination of the ureters.] 855. The rectum of a gentleman in a very diseased state laid open. [The patient about ten years before had been afflicted with piles, but had been cured. A year before his death he was attacked with disease of the rectum, which occasioned great pain and difficulty in voiding the contents, which were accompanied by much blood and slime; and he became exceedingly de- bilitated. On examination, some months after the commencement, a hard ridge was felt about three inches above the anus, passing obliquely round the gut. In May 1791, after various ineffectual modes of treatment, the patient died. On an examination after death it was found that the rectum, from within an inch of the anus to about five inches above it, made one broad ragged ulcer terminating in a ridge both above and below. On the side next to the bladder, the intestine had been destroyed by ulceration ; and a communication with the cavity of the abdomen would have been formed, had it not been for some adhesions, which pre- vented the escape of the contents of the bowel into that cavity. The surrounding parts of the ulcer were hard, or what is commonly called scirrhous ; almost as dense as gristle. Mr. Hunter concludes by asking, “ As there were not any lymphatic glands affected, how far was this disease “ to be accounted a cancer ?”]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2200662x_0001_0086.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
