Rupture and its radical cure : with a full description of the parts involved : also, of falling of the womb, varicocele, enlarged veins of the legs, piles, curved spine, bow-legs, club-feet, and other deformities / by S.N. Marsh.

  • Marsh, S. N. (Seymour N.)
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rupture and its radical cure : with a full description of the parts involved : also, of falling of the womb, varicocele, enlarged veins of the legs, 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.)

    15/58
    or inguinal rupture. There is a slit in this tendon directly under the membrane first described, and the fibres of the tendon cross each other like one finger placed over the other, so as to oppose the descent of the bowel as much as possible. This is the tendon of the external oblique muscle. This opening, or ring,* is indeed the most important of all the others by far : surgeons, generally indeed, do not notice the one we have first described, because it is so far inferior in the strength of its edges, as a preventer of rupture ; they view it merely as a mere starting point for the cylindrical envelope of the cord or extension of the first membrane, as it goes down to the testicles ; but of this directly, when we come to speak of some other diseases that resemble rupture, and require the careful discrimination of the truss-maker, as well as the surgeon ; for every one does not consult the sur- geon before he comes to us, though it always gives us and him more satisfaction when he does so. Through this outer ring the bowel protrudes in a ruptured person, and passes downwards to the testicle, covered by the envelope of the cord. [See the first and second plates for the natural structure, and the third one for the rupture when fully formed and protruding.] This is the most common variety of rupture, and is called the oblique groin or inguinal rupture. The long muscle which divides the belly into two equal halves in the first plate, goes from the breast bone to the private parts, and subserves a similar purpose with the other muscles beneath, besides bending the body forwards. But now let us show what is the nature of the structure when this superficial membrane and the tendinous expansion of the external oblique muscle, as surgeons call it, are dis- sected from the abdomen, and turned down over the thigh like a half-peeled orange. The reader will observe we have yet said nothing about the structure of the thigh as revealed in the plate, because that belongs to the rarer variety most * As surgeons call this slit a rinpf, we shall henceforth adopt that term.