64< ANALYSIS or CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
mucous membrane being only imperfectly supported in the 
part corresponding to the kind of button-hole produced in the 
longitudinal layer of fibres, had, in dissociating the two layers 
of the mesentery, made a hernia through that gap, which of 
course it tended to enlarge. The sacculations noticed on the 
intestine were due to the inequal resistance the hernial 
mucous membrane encountered in becoming distended : for 
the strangulations corresponding to the large intestinal 
branches of the mesenteric vessels bifurcated branches fur¬ 
nished by these vessels in passing from the mesentery to the 
intestines. 
The increasing distension of the hernial membrane was 
evidently a favorable, perhaps a determining, condition for 
the perforation of the intestine which occasioned the fatal 
peritonitis. 
“ The appreciation of the facts relating to this case,” says 
the professor, “ not only permits us to determine the moment 
when, in all probability, the rupture was produced, but fur¬ 
nishes us, in addition, with indications by which we may 
recognise the cause that led to this solution of continuity. 
This cause we find in the exaggerated distension which pro¬ 
bably ensued from the inflammatory infiltration of the mus¬ 
cular tunic; for under this influence, which exerted its action 
more particularly on the fibres of the circular plane, these 
fibres would rupture all the more readily in consequence of 
the impregnation diminishing their power of resistance. The 
solution of continuity took place at the part where this power 
of resistance was least—at the point where the two layers of 
the mesentery separate to receive the intestines between 
them, and where, consequently, the muscular and mucous 
tunics were not sustained by the serous covering.” 
