SURGICAL TREATMENT OF HYDATID TUMOURS. 181 



It has been advanced, in favour of tliis delay, that 

 the patient may still live ten, fifteen, or even twenty 

 years, and that the natural termination of his exist- 

 ence may arrive before the tumour has produced any 

 ill-results. It is certainly true that, by the perform- 

 ance of an operation, some risk of shortening the 

 patient's life is incurred ; but, on the other hand, we 

 cannot prognosticate that the growth of the tumour 

 wiU be so slow that several years may elapse before 

 serious complications present themselves ; the long 

 duration of life which has been stated above is only 

 exceptional in such cases, and, if we take the average 

 duration of life in the cases in which hydatid tumours 

 have become apparent, it will be seen that the death 

 of the patient may be expected within a period of 

 from fifteen months to four years after the affection 

 has been diagnosed, unless some means be resorted to 

 for the removal of the hydatids. Besides this, the 

 older a tumour of this kind has become, the more 

 doubtful must be the success of any plan of treat- 

 ment ; and the danger of any operation is incom- 

 parably greater when the walls of the cyst have lost 

 their elasticity and have become cartilaginous or 

 osseous, when its cavity is filled with an atheromatous 

 deposit, and when the neighbouring viscera have 

 become unfitted for the performance of their func- 

 tions, owing to the compression to wliich they have 

 been subjected. It should also be borne in mind that 

 an individual who has a hydatid tumour in the chest 

 or in the abdomen, is always liable to the danger of 

 rupture of the tumour, as a result of some muscular 

 effort, of external violence, or even of the progress 

 of the affection, and to the risk of serious inflam- 



