364 ESSAYS AND OBSERVATIONS 



There is little difficulty in conceiving 

 how a piece of a gut fhould enter doubled 

 into the part below it, and how it may be 

 gradually protruded downwards to a confi- 

 derable extent by the food ovfceces^ in their 

 defcent towards the anus j but it is not eafy, 

 when this difeafe begins, to diftinguifh it 

 from a variety of other diforders which hap- 

 pen in the alimentary canal, or to find a re- 

 medy when it is fufpeded, efpecially if the 

 intufufceptio is in the fmall guts ; and from 

 the obfervation above narrated of the child 

 with the fatal procidentia ani, it would ap- 

 pear difficult to cure it ; nay, if the doubled 

 parts of the inteftine are grown together, as 

 in moft of the hiftories, a rcdudion of it is 

 impoffible. Nature feldom will perform 

 what I imagine (he did in the laft cafe, fe- 

 parate the doubled part, and unite what con- 

 tained it. Nor do I believe any will be (o 

 hardy as to advife the amputation of the af-- 

 feded part of the gut. 



'Tis furprfing how the people in the pre- 

 ceeding hiflories lived fo long as they did, 

 with fuch large doublings of the inteftine, 

 and its mefentery preffed together within an- 

 other 



