Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Intestinal obstruction / by William Brinton ; edited by Thomas Buzzard. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![ages can be specified for either variety; but the invagina- tions of the small intestine seem to be, on the whole, much the shorter (about four or five inches in each layer); the ileo-csecal much the longer (perhaps carrying the valve into the transverse colon); and the colic of a length about midway between the two. These maximum and average lengths generally correspond with the time occupied by the process; which (as its pathology and symptoms concur to show) is, both in the longer varieties and examples, usually the result of repeated or protracted efforts, lasting many days. The situation of intus-susceptions in the belly may easily be gathered from anatomical considerations. Short invaginations of the small intestine may occupy almost any region of the abdomen. But they are so much more fre(][uent in the lower end of the bowel, that they oftener correspond with the hypogastric and right iliac regions; regions into which any great increase of their length is pretty sure to bring them, whatever may have been their original seat. The ileo-caecal intus-susceptions, for equally obvious reasons, begin in the right iliac region, and from hence gradually pass across the belly to the left iliac region; into which, after dragging down the arch of the colon, so as to constitute a short, thick mass parallel with the pubis, they subside, by engaging the sigmoid flexure and the rectum, and thus entering the pelvic cavity. The colic invaginations so far illustrate the same rule, as that, if of great length, they depress and shorten the horse-shoe curve of the colon into the chord of that particular arc of the bowel which was originally engaged by the intus- susception. In respect to the mechanism of intus-susception, the chief phenomena admit of comparatively simple explana-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21915532_0065.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
