HERNI/E. 371 



For three days the patient was placed on milk diet and received one 

 third grain of calomel daily. 



Operation. — On the gth March the bitch was secured in the dorsal 

 position. Anaesthetics were not given. 



The skin covering the swelling and surrounding parts was washed 

 with soap, shaved, and rinsed with alcohol and sublimate solution. 

 The flanks and abdomen were covered with aseptic compresses. An 

 incision about three and a half inches in length was then made through 

 the skin in the long axis of the swelling, running in a slightly oblique 

 direction backwards and inwards. The sac was enucleated with the 

 fingers, care being taken not to tear it. By methodical compression 

 over the exposed part of the sac the contained organs were gradually 

 returned to the abdomen. The hernial opening, formed by the enlarged 

 inguinal ring, was oval in form ; it measured about three quarters of an 

 inch in its longer diameter and three eighths of an inch across. The 

 sac was twisted under slight tension, ligatured with silk as close as 

 possible to the inguinal ring, and the free part removed about one sixth 

 of an inch below the ligature. After slightly curetting the margins of 

 the inguinal opening the lips were touched with strong carbolic solution 

 and brought together with two silk ligatures. The wound was cleansed 

 with tampons of cotton wool, powdered with iodoform, and the skin 

 brought together with interrupted sutures. When dried the sutures 

 were covered with a layer of iodoform collodion. The ingumal region 

 was surrounded with a gauze compress and enveloped in a thick layer 

 of cotton wool put in place by a bandage. 



No bad results followed. During the succeeding night and next 

 two days the animal was fed on milk and meat. The temperature 

 never exceeded 39*4° C. 



On the nth March the dressing was removed. The margins of the 

 wound were slightly swollen ; there was no suppuration. 



On the i6th the wound had healed to a very large extent ; its centre, 

 and about one and a quarter inches of its lips, discharged a little sero- 

 sanguinolent fluid. It was cleansed with carbolic solution and the 

 cutaneous sutures removed. The parts were swabbed with a cotton- 

 wool tampon saturated in alcohol, a new dressing of cotton wool was 

 applied and left in position until the 20th. At that date the centre 

 portion of the wound had healed. The animal left on the 25th. 



Remarks. — Operation for acute inguinal hernia in the bitch is some- 

 times difficult owing either to adhesion between the herniated organs 

 and the sac, or to the presence of a foetus in one of the (herniated) 

 uterine horns. When one of the herniated organs is adherent to the 

 sac the latter is incised, the adhesion broken down, the hernia reduced, 

 and operation concluded as usual. When, however, epiploon alone is 

 contained in the sac the latter is either ligatured with catgut and 

 excised, or traction is exercised on the sac, which is ligatured as high 

 as possible and resected, together with its contents. 



At the present moment we have in hospital a St. Germain setter bitch 

 operated on for left inguinal hernia, in which the sac contained both 

 uterine horns and a large mass of epiploon. The removal of these parts 

 necessitated triple ligation ; nevertheless, recovery was uncomplicated. 



