Seel. IXi Burs^, MucosiE of the Human Body. 4^ 
Yet nothing is more common than to fee furgeons doing every thing in 
their power to reduce a hernia ; and in a few minutes or hours thereafter, in> 
ftead of taking off the ftriclure by cutting the tendon, laying open the herni- 
ary fac, as if the reduflion of the bowels would otherwife have been unfafe. 
Surely no reafon can be given why the reduction of the bowels Ihould be fafe 
before the tendon is cut, but unfafe after it is cut. 
But inliead of ufing this kind of drgumentum ad hofninem, as it is called, I 
would obferve farther, that it fo very feldom happens that on^ part of the in- 
teftine is twilled around another, or the omentum around the intelHne, fo as 
to llrangulate it, that we find only a very few fuch cafes mentioned in the 
whole hillory of furgery. And if even we were to fuppofe fuch a cafe of 
twilling or volvulus, if the hernia had not continued fo long as to produce an 
accretion of the bowels, the effedl of the twilling and preffure would probably 
be taken off by pulhing the bowels back into their natural place in the large 
cavity of the abdomen* As for the fetid water, which it is faid is apt to oc* 
cur, and that the pulhing it back into the abdomen might be productive of 
mifehief ; from what I have obferved in the operation of hernia, I am very 
doubtful whether fetid water is ever produced except where there is mortifica- 
tion. Water is indeed often effufed in a llrangulated hernia ; but if there is 
no mortification, and the hernia be reduced, that water produces no bad fymp- 
tom, but is foon abforbed. If this was not the cafe, the reduaion of every 
hernia which had been for a fhort time llrangulated would be attended with 
danger. 
We are by this obfervation led to confider the treatment in mortifica- 
\ 
tion. 
If it be certain that the bowels are mortified, the neceffity of opening the 
fac is evident, that we may give our patient a chance of life, though to be at- 
tended with moll uncomfortable circumllances : But if there be the fmallell 
chance that the inflammation may terminate without mortification, it is equal- 
