liNGUINAL HERNIA. 375 



in the upper and fore part of the inside of the thigh. The existence of 

 hernia was evident beyond dispute. Bj compressing and pushing its 

 contents backward and upward, he caused the whole of them to re-enter 

 the canal, but they speedily re-appeared. Bandages and compresses of 

 tow kept the hernia reduced, but their tightness caused alarming tume- 

 factions which required their removal, and the consequence was on the 

 sixth day the hernia returned. The mare was now cast, the hernia re- 

 duced, and pledgets of tow, dipped in melted pitch, plastered upon the 

 situation of the tumour, and over them one, twelve inches in diameter, of 

 pitched strong canvass. As soon as the pitch had set the mare was let 

 up. In ten days afterwards the plasters had fallen off, leaving some ul- 

 cerations, which readily healed. The place opposite the termination of 

 the femoral canal subsequently exhibited a species of callus. 



The contents of Inguinal Hernia consist, almost in all cases, of the 

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

 their general inanity, and their energetic contractility, they the 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 protrusion is 

 uniformly the effect of some violent intestinal commotion, and is never 

 the occasion of much mischief When the contents are intestines 

 solely, the hernia is denominated an enterocele ; when nothing but omen- 

 tum, epiplocele ; when both combined, enter o-epiplocele. 



The ordinary Causes of inguinal hernia are inordinate peristaltic com- 

 motions, excited by colic. The rupture, however, may happen under the 

 efforts occasioned by a heavy burthen, or in the acts of rearing, kicking, 

 leaping, &c. To these causes — as practitioners in England — we may add 

 those violent exertions the animal is forced to make in racing and hunt- 

 ing. The force with which the diaphragm recedes in the efforts made 

 by the running animal to expand his chest — dilatation of the cavity 

 laterally being much opposed by the confinement of the ribs by the 

 girths — impels the viscera backwards against the abdominal rings, through 

 which one or other of the small intestines — they being the loosest, 

 smallest, and most fglib parts — is very likely to be protruded. This 

 accounts for our viewing horses that have been in severe training with 

 great suspicion when they are brought to us for castration. In India, 

 where hernia is very frequent, Mr, Molyneux — a gentleman who has 

 written a very good paper on the subject in ' The Veterinarian' — informs 

 us that "exertion is the chief," and, he believes, "almost only cause;" 

 though on one occasion he knew it " to be produced through constipa- 

 tion " — by " the exertion used in expelling the fa3ces." 



