VENTRAL HERNIA. 
301 
under unfavourable circumstances. The urinary bladder had been 
incised, but was immediately sutured, and recovery followed. r lhe purse¬ 
string suture may sometimes be used to advantage. 
A case of rupture of the perineum in a mare consequent on difficult 
labour, and successfully treated by operation, is described on p. 426 of 
Cadiot and Dollar’s “ Clinical Veterinary Medicine and Surgery.” The 
wound was of old standing and had been sutured, but failed to unite. It 
extended from the superior commissure of the vulva as high as the anus, 
but without involving the sphincter ani. The edges of the wound were 
freshened and re-formed and two series of sutures (see fig. 131) were • 
inserted. A second operation became necessary on account of some of 
the deep sutures tearing out, but recovery was complete within six weeks 
of the first operation. 
X.—VENTRAL HERNIA (HERNIA YENTRALIS). 
Whilst the hernise hitherto described are due to dilatation of openings 
normally present, all others caused by solutions of continuity in the 
abdominal walls (but not of the skin) are described as vential hernisB. 
Such breaches are either caused by external injuries, like kicks, treads, 
thrusts, the impact of blunt bodies, collisions with the carriage pole, 
staking of the abdomen, and falling on blunt objects, oi they may lesult 
from excessive muscular contraction during parturition, &c. Sometimes 
they attain very large dimensions, as shown by Eberhardt and Dette’s 
cases, and by a mare Moller had under observation (fig. 132). Hertwig 
believed that congenital fissures in the walls of the abdomen sometimes 
caused ventral hernise. 
As a rule, the sac consists of skin and and panniculus, the contents 
(intestine or omentum, or both) having passed through a rupture in the 
abdominal muscles,.to which they later become adherent, the peritoneum 
is generally torn through. The hernia usually contains intestine, 
though Noack reports two cases in the cow where it was above the 
udder, and contained portions of the uterus. One, operated on by 
Guitard, was in the right flank, and contained the abomasum. Gerlach 
and Schmiele have seen hernise containing portions of the liver. A pig 
described by Frick, which had died of double-sided hydronephrosis, 
showed just in front of the os pubis a hernial opening through which the 
bladder had slipped and become bent backwards. 
Symptoms. In recent ventral hernise two sets of symptoms exist, 
those of hernia proper, and those of rupture and bruising of tissue, 
the latter may, indeed, appear the more important and mask the hernia. 
Ventral herniee are found most frequently near the last rib, in cattle 
on the right, in horses on the left side. The parts are acutely inflamed, 
