444 
FUNCTION IN TYMPANITIS. 
rently in great pain, during the last thirty minutes ; and died after 
five hours’ illness. 
Treatment . — He got, from first to last, seven or eight draughts, 
containing altogether 12 ounces of ammonia and 24 ounces of a 
strong pepper tincture. He was back-raked and clystered often. 
He was bled once, losing about 12 quarts of blood; and he was 
punctured in four places, once with the small trochar, and thrice 
with a large one used for cattle. The draughts, all except the 
last, which seemed to increase the pain, appeared to relieve him 
more or less. He became easier, but the belly never decreased in 
volume. The bleeding made him faint; he fell, and afterwards 
seemed weak, and disposed but unable to struggle. If it did not pre- 
vent inflammation, the bleeding did no good; but I am pretty sure 
that it did prevent inflammation. It blanched the eye and the 
mouth, and made the pulse soft and weak. Exercise, of which he 
got a little, did no good; and punction evacuated no air — nothing 
whatever. The clysters were returned pure as they were given ; 
but the pelvis was so full of the bowels that the rectum would not 
hold a quart. After death, I made several punctures with the 
large trochar; from one puncture, made on the right side, between 
the fifth and sixth ribs, counting forward, a great deal of gas was 
evacuated; from the others I got little or none. 
Dissection . — The body was carted two miles, and opened six 
hours after death. A little gas was found in the abdominal cavity; 
but whether it had escaped by the openings made before or those 
after death, I could not tell. The small intestines first appeared. 
They were all full of gas, and the slightest pressure forced it 
through the perforations, of which I found several; but I had made 
many, perhaps fifteen. There was no rupture, no inflammation, 
no spasmodic constriction. Rupture of the diaphragm is generally 
found in these cases ; but it did not exist here. There was not 
much food; a little in the colon was very dry, and some quite 
moist. At the dry part there was a considerable tumour on the 
intestine. Its apex adhered to the omentum. It weighed nine- 
teen ounces, and in each direction measured twelve inches and a 
half. It was full of thick yellow matter, lodged between the mus- 
cular and mucous coats. 
This was a very interesting case ; but I have no room for any 
remarks upon it, nor yet for comment upon the singularly-errone- 
ous doctrines now prevailing and recently expressed regarding 
diseases of the digestive apparatus. But, perhaps, they are nearly 
as true as any otheT doctrines composed in the same way, that is, 
of old conjectures, three-fourths, and of new conjectures, one-fourth. 
