500 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1741. 



of one piece. He plainly saw that they were portions of the ileum ; but he 

 was obliged to meditate on it a 2d time, in order to guess at the rest ; and yet 

 nothing so easy when a person has hit it off. 



The hernia which this woman had at first, was one of those named an in- 

 complete hernia properly so called ; that is, a hernia where there was but a 

 portion of the side of the gut pinched within the ring. This strangulated por- 

 tion mortified ; the sound lips cicatrized with the integuments ; the rest of the 

 canal remained within the belly ; and the excrements, which this remainder of 

 the canal received, issued at its outlet towards the groin. 



The patient, being recovered, quitted her bed, and by little and little oc- 

 casioned the turning inside out, and fall of the portions of the intestinal canal, 

 situated above and below the open part. By this inversion, the remaining coats 

 of the opened gut came out likewise. This part is situated between the 2 por- 

 tions, one of which answers to the stomach, and the other to the anus ; and 

 with these 2 portions it makes but one and the same part, or a continued plane: 

 it was therefore found, out of the belly, between these 2 portions, and formed, 

 as it were, the trunk of these 2 branches. 



The portion, or branch, corresponding with the anus, must have had less 

 motion, and be less sound ; because it is deprived of the share of life that 

 would come to it from the continuity of the fibres that were pinched and carried 

 off by the strangulation, and that it is continually exposed to the air. The 

 other portion is full of life, because its continuity with the stomach makes it 

 enjoy all the life that this communication can furnish it with ; and that besides 

 it remains within the abdomen, while the patient is in a recumbent posture. 



In order to give the pupils of our Hotel-Dieu a clear notion of the formation 

 of this singular rupture, he made one just like it on a dead body. For that 

 purpose he made an incision in the abdomen, at the place of the rings. He 

 passed into it a gut, in which he made an opening. He sewed the lips of this 

 opening to those of the wound of the belly ; and having turned inside out the 

 portions of gut placed above and below this opening, they afforded a bifurcation 

 of guts continuous, and entirely like that of the observation. 

 !' A disease well known is sometimes half cured. This same portion of gut that 

 supplied the faeces, and that was so lively, was drawn back into the belly, when 

 the patient lay down, as already said ; and the other only constantly continued 

 out. This circumstance made him conceive hopes of curing this accident. 



He reasoned in this manner: it is but first making this last gut enter in, and 

 bringing the disease to its first state : then, seeing there was a pretty large portion 

 of a canal still remaining between these 2 guts, as appeared by the size of the 

 trunk of the branches forined by them ; what remained to be done, after the 



