176 Surgical Diseases and Surgery of the Dog 



fact, so common was this self-reduction, that in order to maintain 

 the condition he desired he found it necessary to so suture the arti- 

 ficial invagination that disinvagination was made impossible. F. 

 B. Robinson classes it as one of the commonest sequelae to resec- 

 tion operations as performed by the end-to-end methods. Out of 

 two hundred and twenty-five dogs he used for such experiments, 

 he lost eight from intussusception. Hobday has recorded its oc- 

 currence after an enterotomy operation, and in another instance 

 after celiotomy, massage of the bowel, and removal of a fecal im- 

 paction with a scoop the contractions of the healthy portion having 

 brought about its invagination within the dilated and paralysed area 

 of previous obstruction. Kitt found much entangled masses of 

 packing thread in the invaginated portions, and refers to instances 

 of its occurrence in connection with tumor of the wall. Neumann 

 states that invagination may be provoked by the presence of as- 

 carides. Cadeac says it may be brought about by the ingestion of 

 cold water during the heat of the chase. Dudfield believed it might 

 be caused by supercatharsis induced by overdoses of sulphur. 

 Kowaleski found a piece of wood in the duodenum and three in- 

 vaginations in the ileum. It has been observed by many veterinar- 

 ians that a certain relationship exists between icterus and intussus- 

 ception. Some of the earlier writers regarded the latter as one of 

 the causes of the former. In forty dogs dead of icterus Reynal 

 found twenty-one with complication of intussusception. As late 

 as 1886 Rancilla, having conducted necropsies on the bodies of 

 sixty dogs dead of icterus concluded that intussusception was the 

 cause in four out of every five dogs affected. But Trasbot liga- 

 tured a portion of the bowel and could not produce icterus, and in 

 Senn's description of all his artificial invaginations I find- no refer- 

 ence to its development. A more plausible theory is that the in- 

 vagination occurs as a result of the long agonal period character- 

 istic of icterus, possibly owing to loss by the bowel of some guid- 

 ing or restraining influence exerted by the bile, since physiologists 

 teach that one function of the latter is to maintain normal pei-is- 

 taltic action. Trasbot has suggested that it may be a consequence 

 of biliary intoxication whereby the sympathetic ganglia are vio- 

 lently excited and provoke spasmodic contraction of the muscular 

 layer. 



Intussusception occurs mostly in young dogs, probably owing 



