For a year before death he was almost constantly under treatment for dysentery. When:>er deatli the following was the condition i; > the cicatrix presented a line of contract!' -us niembrai;nall intestine was genendly of a pale pink colour. olon ''u.
Rectum i-s the gut, it may be thrown y stool. Such a case occurred in the 19th regiment The nude of the above parts were sent to I rt Pitt in the Crimea, and is reported by the surgeon in the Lancet, vol. 1, 1855. If a vascular viscus be wounded, or a large blood-vessel opened, then haemorrhage may take place within the ahdomcn to a very serious and fatal extent. The mutual pressure of the viscera does much to prevent bleeding from the former source, and the lax attachment of the arteries in general enables them to escape. If blood be poured out suddenly and in quantity, it will partly escape by the wound, and partly collect at the most dependent part of the abdomen, or in the pelvis.
Baudens mentions as a certain sign of a quantity of blood being collected in the pelvis, the incessant and insupportable desire to micturate caused by the pressure on the bladder, and which is set up although there is no urine in the viscus. Besides the immediate danger which proceeds from the loss of blood, such effusions, if in quantity, fail to become absorbed, decompose, set up inflammation, and cause death. The quantity must be small which will insure its absorption. It is therefore a matter of some importance to evacuate such accumulations by reopening the wound, rather than to attempt its removal by operation afterwards. The symptoms of penetrating wounds of the abdomen are those which belong to the accident proper, and those which result from its consequences.
The collapse is generally very severe, and this is the case, too, in many instances in which the injury appears at first very superficial and trivial. While, in general, this shock and alarm are indicative of deep and serious lesion, they are often exeited by no apparently adequate cause. If some haemorrhage, or the effusion of any of the secretions, as Till. ABDOMKX AND BLADDKIl. he contents of any of the hollow viscera follow rhc injury, tl: -llapse will not only be severe, but will continue. The subsequent symptoms of these wounds will pan... characters those common to all inrlanimat: from the inflammation rticular organ injured. The inflammation so certain to occur in the peritoneum iv<j' t'ul watching, as it often sets in very slowly, and deceptively.
"The consciousness of imperfection induced in the cavity," of which Hunter speaks, nr apt to take on an inflammatory action. The position and direction of the wound, and the m-ent symptoms referable to the lesion of sp organs, will lead us to surmise the injury of this or that viscus. The persistent vomiting, the ejection of bl by the muth OT by stool, or with the urine, the 60C of special secretions, as bile by the wound, the peculiar pain or sensation experienced liy patient, will be our 'us in determining the part The treatment of simple, non-ing wounds little notice, the prevention or subdual of. and the favouring by position of that conservative adhesion between the viscera and the par whic irable if sloughing should set in, so as to <T the The managemcn is not much Hunter MTS of the blood passed by stool; If it is from a high part of an intratine, it will be mixed with faces, and of a dark colour: i; colon, the blood will be lew mixed and give the tinge of blood;' 1 and of the charn cling, he adds: ill be more or less acute according to the intestine wounded; more of the sickly pain the higher more difficult, but the results are very much less satisfactory.
When the penetration has been occasioned by a ball, it is not often that we have an opportunity of verifying the fact of visceral lesion. No attempt should be made to follow the ball. The wound should be lightly covered, the patient placed in such a position as will relax the abdominal walls, fomentations applied by means of the lightest possible material, opium freely given by the mouth; and, if inflammation set in, then leeches and even general blood-letting may be had recourse to. " All wounds that enter the belly," says Hunter, " which have injured some viscus, are to be treated according to the nature of the wounded part, with its complications, which will be many; because the belly contains more parts of very dissimilar uses than any other cavity of the body, each of which will produce symptoms peculiar to itself and the nature of the wound." " It cannot be too frequently repeated," says Dr.