Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Tuffell, in 1813, removed a flask of crystal from the rectum; but was obliged to break it before he could accomplish its removal.

Dessault, in endeavouring to remove a porcelain jelly pot, of conical form, and about three inches in length, fractured it in several pieces; however, he succeeded in removing them without injuring the intestine.

Buzzani,* in the year 1777, at Turin, extracted from the rectum of a man, a teacup, which the patient had himself introduced, for the purpose of dilating the bowel.

Morand records the two following cases: A man, about sixty years of age, presented himself at the Hôpital de la Charité, complaining that the pipe of a syringe had entered his rectum. Gerard introduced his finger, and felt a foreign body, which he removed with a pair of lithotomy forceps. It proved to be a large knitting-sheath of boxwood, six inches in length. A weaver, who had long suffered from constipation, having some vague notions of the efficacy of suppositories, introduced into his rectum a shuttle with its roll of yarn. After five days he applied at the Hôtel Dieu. M. Bonhomme extracted it with a pair of lithotomy forceps.

*Lancet,' 1855-6, p. 23.

† Mém. de l'Acad. Roy. de Chirur.,' Paris, 1700.

The two following cases are related by Hevin." M. Quesnay pushed a bone, which was arrested in the œsophagus, into the stomach. It was afterwards arrested in the rectum, and induced great pain. The patient again applied to M. Quesnay, who found the bone sticking obliquely across the intestine, with the lower end fixed in its walls. He removed it with a pair of forceps, first disengaging its inferior extremity by pushing it upward. Fagèt removed a mutton bone from the rectum of a man he was called to see the bone had been swallowed eight days previously.

Méeckren † mentions a case in which the jawbone of a turbot was arrested in the rectum. The patient attributed the local and constitutional symptoms he experienced to hæmorrhoids. The true cause was not discovered till, in attempting to administer a lavement, the pipe of the instrument came in contact with a foreign body. Méeckren made an examination, and detected the bone with its ends fixed in the walls of the intestine; he removed it with bis fingers. patient recollected having swallowed it eight days previously, and experienced great pain in its passage through the intestine. Méeckren also mentions a case which occurred to Tholuix, in which the jawbone of a fish became arrested in the rectum. It was cut + Obs. Med.-Chirurg.'

* Op. cit., tome iii.

The

across with a pair of strong scissors, and the two portions extracted with ease.

Thiandière* details the case of a man, aged twentytwo, who, with the view to overcome costiveness, introduced a forked stick into the rectum. This stick was five inches long; one prong was an inch and a half longer than the other, and they were separated to the extent of two inches, each prong being about four lines in diameter, and the stem formed by their union half an inch. He inserted the one stem first, and when the short prong had entered the bowel, he endeavoured, by dragging on the long one, to force out the indurated fæces. In this ingenious essay it is unnecessary to say he failed completely the pain being very severe, he ceased his manipulations, and, finding it impossible to withdraw the fork, he forced the long prong completely within the anus, with the extraordinary idea that it would be consumed with the food. Fearful to divulge the nature of his case, he bore his sufferings in solitude and despair, until the abdominal pain and difficulty in urinating led him to seek the aid of Thiandière, who, on making an examination, soon discovered the foreign body, but it was so high up that he could scarcely touch it. He endeavoured, but in vain, to extract it with a forceps passed through a

*Bullet. Gén. de Thérapeut., Janvr., 1835.

speculum. The happy idea then struck him of using his hand, which, after having washed out the rectum, he insinuated finger by finger. Conducted by the long branch, he succeeded in reaching the bifurcation of the stick, and disengaged it with difficulty from a fold of the mucous membrane, in which it had become entangled, then compressing the prongs together, he safely removed it.

A similar case to the foregoing is recorded in the 'Lancet.'* A man, twenty-nine years of age, had suffered from his childhood from prolapsus recti, and was in the habit of replacing the intestine without aid. On one occasion, when the rectum was prolapsed, he cut a branch of willow, which divided into two prongs: holding these in his hand, with the other end of the stick he pushed up the gut, but using too much force the whole of the stick passed up also. The prongs expanding rendered him unable to withdraw it. After eight days, he was seized with acute pain in the breast, which he ascribed to the presence of the foreign body in the rectum. An examination was made per anum, but nothing detected: two months afterwards, abscesses formed over the gluteus muscle, which were opened, and the bifurcated ends of the stick protruded; they were seized, and broken at their angle of junction, and the * Vol. ii., 1835-6, p. 23.

pieces extracted.

Each prong was nine inches in length, and the conjoined stem two inches long and three-quarters of an inch in diameter.

Marchetti mentions the following case: Some students of Goettingen introduced into the rectum of an unfortunate woman all, save the small extremity, of a pig's tail, from which they had cut enough of the bristles to render it as rough as possible. Various attempts were made to extract it, but in vain. Marchetti being consulted, adopted a very simple and ingenious procedure, which consisted in securing its inferior extremity with a strong waxed thread, and slipping over it into the rectum a canula prepared for the purpose. He thus defended the bowel from the effects of the bristles, and easily removed it.

Custance mentions the case of a man who fell on an inverted blacking-pot, and had the whole of it forced up the rectum. Attempts were made for an hour and a half to dilate the sphincter, and remove it with a forceps, but in vain. The small end of an iron pestle was then introduced, till it touched the bottom, and, being held there firmly, was struck with a flat iron. At the second blow the pot was broken into several pieces, which were removed piece by piece by the forceps, or the fingers. Next morning he laboured

* Obs. Med. Rarior Syllog.,' cap. vii.

« AnteriorContinuar »