Chap, xix.] SCARPA'S TRIANGLE. 391 



of the hip, and this result is not uncommon after deep 

 and severe burns of this neighbourhood. It may at 

 the same time be noted that horizontal wounds about 

 the groin can be well adjusted by a slight flexion of 

 the thigh. 



Instances are recorded where a supernumerary 

 mammary gland, provided with a proper nipple, has 

 been found located in the groin. Jessieu relates the 

 case of a female who had a breast so placed, and who 

 suckled her child from this part. In a few cases the 

 testicle, instead of descending into the scrotum, has 

 escaped through the crural canal, and made its 

 appearance in Scarpa's triangle. It has even mounted 

 up over Poupart's ligament after the manner of a 

 femoral hernia, being probably urged in that direction 

 by the movements of the limb. 



The superficial fascia in this region is not 

 very dense, and has little or no influence upon the 

 progress of a superficial abscess. This fact receives 

 extensive illustration, since the glands in Scarpa's 

 triangle frequently suppurate, and yet the pus in the 

 great majority of the cases readily reaches the surface, 

 in spite of the circumstance that the denser layer of the 

 superficial fascia (for in this region it is divided into 

 two layers) covers in those glands, and should hinder 

 the progress of pus towards the surface. Although 

 the subcutaneous fat is not peculiarly plentiful in this 

 region, yet Scarpa's triangle is a favourite spot for 

 lipomata. It is in this place that the fatty tumour 

 often exhibits its disposition to travel, and several 

 cases are reported where such a tumour has started at 

 the groin, and travelled some way down the thigh. 

 The journey is always in the direction of gravity, and 

 is rendered possible by the lax capsule of the tumour, 

 by the looseness of the tissue in which it is embedded, 

 and by the fluidity of fat at the normal temperature 

 of the body. 



