A plain and popular explanation of the nature, varieties, treatment and cure of hernia, or rupture : with an appendix on mechanical surgery, and the application of the various instruments for prolapsus, varicocele, piles, curved spine, bow-legs, club-feet, and other deformities / by S.N. Marsh.
- Marsh, S. N. (Seymour N.)
- Date:
- [1860?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A plain and popular explanation of the nature, varieties, treatment and cure of hernia, or rupture : with an appendix on mechanical surgery, and the application of the various instruments for prolapsus, varicocele, piles, curved spine, bow-legs, club-feet, and other deformities / by S.N. Marsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
18/70
![This last remark applies to every species and variety of Hernia, which is very often obscure and complicated. Besides, there are several other tumors liable to be confounded with, and mistaken for Hernia, such as scrofulous, syphilitic, and sympathetic bubo; hydrocele, sarcocele, and other tumors of the scrotum and testes; varicocele, or swelling of the spermatic veins in the cord; the tes- ticle itself, arrested in its descent from the abdomen, and found in the groin, &c.; and if so mistaken, all the efforts at reduction are mischievous, and the applicatiou of a Truss, in such cases, has proved dangerous. Hence it can never be safe to treat Hernia in any stage without good surgical advice, so great is the risk of a false diagnosis. This will be more apparent as we proceed with our illustrations of the local anatomy of the parts involved. The anterior walls of the abdomen are composed of a succession of strong muscles and tendinous expansions, which support the bowels and other viscera. But there are several natural openings, the most important of which are made by the passage from the abdomen into the scro- tum of the testicles in males, which normally takes place shortly be- fore birth, or soon after, and is subsequently occupied by the sper- matic cord in males, and in females by a ligament of the womb, which imperfectly fills it. There are two of these openings on each side, called the internal and external abdominal rings; and as one is nearly an inch lower than the other in the abdominal wall, the intermediate space is called the inguinal or spermatic canal. Now, it is through the internal ring that the most common form of Hernia begins, called oblique or indirect Inguinal Hernia. [Pl. IV.] A knuckle of intestine or omentum escapes through this ring into the canal, and produces what is called concealed Inguinal Her- nia. At this stage, if then diagnosticated, every case would admit of an early and radical cure by an appropriate Truss. But as this canal leads from the internal ring to the external, the protruding portion of the bowel soon advances to the latter, and passing through this external ring, the tumor presents itself in the groin, and is then called oblique or indirect Inguinal Hernia; in contra- distinction from that form in which the hernial tumor escapes im-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21139179_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
