Illustrations of the great operations of surgery, trepan, hernia, amputation, aneurism, and lithotomy / By Charles Bell.

  • Charles Bell
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of the great operations of surgery, trepan, hernia, amputation, aneurism, and lithotomy / By Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    m ■N “ be alarmed at this fallacious appearance, which is produced merely by the confined, comp ^ “ being set free, and not by the addition of any more.” In contravention to this a vice, mus r p the matter correctly. „ • t n iv When three or four turns of the intestine are steaming among the fingers of the urgeon, 1 f an appalling sight “ to the ignorant by-stander,” but to those, especially, who look orwar to w lows. First, there is much difficulty in repressing the distended intestine, so as to expose t e s ric ure, and to cut it. The intestines must be rudely repressed for this purpose, and they are in anger o » over the edge of the bistoury. Then we see the Surgeon, I may say, struggling with t ese vo of intestine, in an ineffectual attempt to empty them. When, at last, he succeeds m re ucmg them, it is thus —he must compress a portion of the gut, at about two inches from the seat o t stricture: he must press up the fluid contents of this portion, preventing them from flowing backwards, and forcing them into the part of gut that is within the belly. After this first portion of intestine is empty, he must let in more from the over-distended intestine below ; and this he must do many times in succession, until the whole of the distended bowels are empty and flattened ; during this process, he must necessarily knead and pinch, repeatedly, every portion of the protruded gut! What is the consequence ? [I have seen it on dissection,] that portion of the intestine which was down in the Hernia, and which, during the operation, appeared natural and free from all disease or inflammation, being subjected to this severe process of squeezing and handling, inflames; and is seen lying among the other turns of the intestine, distinct in colour, inflamed, and glued into a knot; it is the cause of death. All this is the consequence of disengaging the intestine from the compression of the peritoneal sac, and exposing it in the manner expressed in Plate VI. .