INGUINAL HERNIA. 



603 



contents of tins hernia consist almost in all cases of the small 

 intestines. From the looseness of their attachment, their volume, 

 their general emptiness, and their energetic contractility, they 

 most readily enter the inguinal canal. The duplicatures and 

 flexures of the colon are the parts next most liable to protrusion. 

 In respect to the omentum — which is so short that one would 

 conceive it impossible it could ever reach the canal, without 

 laceration at least — its protru- 



sion is uniformly the effect of 

 some violent intestinal com- 

 motion, and is never the occa- 

 sion of much mischief. When 

 the contents are intestines 

 solely, the hernia is denomi- 

 nated an Enterocele ; when 

 nothing but omentum, Ein- 

 plocele ; when both combined, 

 Untero-Upijjlocdc." — (GiRARD 

 on Inguinal Hernia. Paris, 

 1827). 



The lower animals are much 

 less subject to this form of 

 hernia than man, and this is 

 not less due to the position of 

 their bodies than to the ar- 

 rangement of the muscular 

 and fibrous envelopes forming 

 the floor of the abdomen. M. 

 Girard says : — 



" In man, the intestinal 

 mass is bearing downwards, 

 and particularly upon the in- 

 guinal regions, where the open- 

 ings — the abdominal ring and 

 crural arch — are situated. In 

 quadrupeds, on the contrary, in 

 consequence of the oblique in- 

 clination, forwards and down- 



/ 



wy7^4 



'^/^///^ 



s^ 



Fig. 112. — Inguinal Heraia (Girard). 

 a, a. Portion of the colon, continuous with 

 h, h, small intestine, which is fixed in the 

 inguinal canal ; c, c, is the neck of the 

 peritoneal sheath, which is enlarged from 

 wards, of the floor of the belly, tJie passage of the intestine into it ; cL d, 

 tumefied portion of spermatic cord. — 

 {From Gamgee's Domestic Animals.) 



from the flank to the brisket, 



