[ 327 ] 
have deceived me in his accounts and as it was dan- 
gerous to open a bag which had too near a refem- 
blance with the gut of an incomplete hernia, I came 
to a refolution, which equally fuited the two fufi- 
pedted cafes. I feparated the tefticle and fpermatic 
veifels from this fack, and pufhed back this pocket, 
or fecond bag, into the belly. 
The patient having died on the 9th day after the 
operation, we found, that the pocket which had 
given us fo much uneafinefs, and which I had re- 
duced into the belly, was really a herniary lack 
formed by the true peritoneum ; and therefore that 
the firft fack muft have been either an interior apo- 
neurotic lamina of the abdominal mufcles, or the 
cellular membrane thickened by the long duration of 
the hernia and its ftrangulations. The confiderable 
thicknefs of the true or fecond fack renders this no- 
tion very probable. I fay that the firft fack muft 
have been formed by an interior aponeurotic lamina , 
and not from an exterior one, like that of the firft 
obfervation ; becaufe, in this operation, I had freed 
the ring, in my ufual manner, above this firft fack, 
and without opening it. Then I pafled the grooved 
catheter over this fack, under the aponeurofis or pillar 
of the mu f culm obli quus ext emus ; and therefore this 
fack could not be a continuation of this external 
aponeurofis , but that of fome more inward lamina 
or of the cellular membrane of the very peritoneum ,, 
feparated from the true lamina by the ferofities which 
we found in it. 
To this letter I will add two obfervations made 
about the fitme time, 
I, 
