INTRO-SUSCEPTION. 341 



accidents during life, but the extraordinary violence of the 

 symptoms, and the total inefficacy of all the means we employ. 



Pathology. — I have long imagined — and I find I am 

 far from being singular in entertaining such a notion — that, 

 on occasions, it happens that cases such as I have been 

 describing are the result of common colic ; that, in the 

 commotion excited among the intestines, some of therp get 

 twisted, entangled, or intro-suscepted, or worm themselves 

 into situations from which they cannot withdraw themselves 

 again. Still, however, many cases occur in which, from the 

 change of structure apparent, as well as the adhesions 

 present, it is evident that the contrary is the correct 

 pathology ; and that the mishap, whatever it may be, has 

 existed for some considerable time before. 



The Morbid Effects consequent upon these internal 

 strictures are, inflammation in its various forms and stages, 

 from the pink hue of the peritoneum, and of such intestines 

 as are remote from the place of stricture, to the black and 

 gangrenous condition of the parts immediately implicated. 

 The intestines not only exhibit these various shades of 

 redness; they are often found to be actually of difi'erent 

 colours, some being red, some green, some black, while 

 others remain unchanged — white.^ Those guts that are 

 anterior to the stricture are commonly distended with air : 

 the rest are flaccid. The coats of such of them as are 

 involved in the stricture are often enormously thickened 

 from interstitial efi'usiori. In Mr. Goodwin^s case, the coats 

 of the colon proved " almost three times their natural 

 thickness ;" also a great deal of blood — sometimes congealed, 

 sometimes fluid — is occasionally found in their cavities. In 

 the case related by Mr. C. Percivall, and in the one 

 mentioned of intus-susception by Mr. Cartwright, the 

 strangulated gut presented the appearance rather of a mass 

 of extravasated ])lood than intestine. In addition to which, 

 in Mr. PercivalFs case, there were from three to four gallons 

 of fluid within the cavity of the belly. 



* Care must be taken not to confound with these the changes of colour which 

 ensue after death. 



