Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [405]
suggested by Maisonneuve, and was studied experimentally by von Hacken. Billroth resorted to it, and Senn modified it by substituting decalcified bone-plates for sutures. Since that time, Abbe, Matas, Davis, Brokaw, Robinson, Stamm, Baracz, and Dawburn, have modified the material of the plates used, substituting catgut rings, untanned leather, cartilage, raw turnips, potatoes, etc. Recently Murphy of Chicago has invented a button, which has been extensively used all over the world, in place of sutures and rings, as a means of anastomosis. Hardly any subject has had more discussion in recent literature than the merits of this ingenious contrivance.
Foreign Bodies in the Rectum.--Probably the most celebrated case of foreign body introduced into the rectum is the classic one mentioned by Hevin. Some students introduced the frozen tail of a pig in the anus of a French prostitute. The bristles were cut short, and having prepared the passage with oil, they introduced the tail with great force into the rectum, allowing a portion to protrude. Great pain and violent symptoms followed; there was distressing vomiting, obstinate constipation, and fever. Despite the efforts to withdraw the tail, the arrangement of the bristles which allowed entrance, prevented removal. On the sixth day, in great agony, the woman applied to Marchettis, who ingeniously adopted the simple procedure of taking a long hollow reed, and preparing one of its extremities so that it could be introduced into the rectum, he was enabled to pass the reed entirely around the tail and to withdraw both. Relief was prompt, and the removal of the foreign body was followed by the issue of stercoraceous matter which had accumulated the six days it had remained in situ.
Tuffet is quoted as mentioning a farmer of forty-six who, in masturbation, introduced a barley-head into his urethra. It was found necessary to cut the foreign body out of the side of the glans. A year later he put in his anus a cylindric snuff-box of large size, and this had to be removed by surgical methods. Finally, a drinking goblet was used, but this resulted in death, after much suffering and lay treatment. In his memoirs of the old Academy of Surgery in Paris, Morand speaks of a monk who, to cure a violent colic, introduced into his fundament a bottle of l'eau de la reine de Hongrie, with a small opening in its mouth, by which the contents, drop by drop, could enter the intestine. He found he could not remove the bottle, and violent inflammation ensued. It was at last necessary to secure a boy with a small hand to extract the bottle. There is a record of a case in which a tin cup or tumbler was pushed up the rectum and then passed into the colon where it caused gangrene and death. It was found to measure 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 by two inches. There is a French case in which a preserve-pot three inches in diameter was introduced into the rectum, and had to be broken and extracted piece by piece.
Cloquet had a patient who put into his rectum a beer glass and a preserving pot. Montanari removed from the rectum of a man a mortar pestle 30 cm. long, and Poulet mentions a pederast who accidentally killed himself by introducing a similar instrument, 55 cm. long, which perforated his intestine. Studsgaard mentions that in the pathologic collection at Copenhagen there is a long, smooth stone, 17 cm. long, weighing 900 gm., which a peasant had introduced into his rectum to relieve prolapsus. The stone was extracted in 1756 by a surgeon named Frantz Dyhr. Jeffreys speaks of a person who, to stop diarrhea, introduced into his rectum a piece of wood measuring seven inches.
There is a remarkable case recorded of a stick in the anus of a man of sixty, the superior extremity in the right hypochondrium, the inferior in the concavity of the sacrum. The stick measured 32 cm. in length; the man recovered. It is impossible to comprehend this extent of straightening of the intestine without great twisting of the mesocolon. Tompsett mentions that he was called to see a workman of sixty-five, suffering from extreme rectal
Foreign Bodies in the Rectum.--Probably the most celebrated case of foreign body introduced into the rectum is the classic one mentioned by Hevin. Some students introduced the frozen tail of a pig in the anus of a French prostitute. The bristles were cut short, and having prepared the passage with oil, they introduced the tail with great force into the rectum, allowing a portion to protrude. Great pain and violent symptoms followed; there was distressing vomiting, obstinate constipation, and fever. Despite the efforts to withdraw the tail, the arrangement of the bristles which allowed entrance, prevented removal. On the sixth day, in great agony, the woman applied to Marchettis, who ingeniously adopted the simple procedure of taking a long hollow reed, and preparing one of its extremities so that it could be introduced into the rectum, he was enabled to pass the reed entirely around the tail and to withdraw both. Relief was prompt, and the removal of the foreign body was followed by the issue of stercoraceous matter which had accumulated the six days it had remained in situ.
Tuffet is quoted as mentioning a farmer of forty-six who, in masturbation, introduced a barley-head into his urethra. It was found necessary to cut the foreign body out of the side of the glans. A year later he put in his anus a cylindric snuff-box of large size, and this had to be removed by surgical methods. Finally, a drinking goblet was used, but this resulted in death, after much suffering and lay treatment. In his memoirs of the old Academy of Surgery in Paris, Morand speaks of a monk who, to cure a violent colic, introduced into his fundament a bottle of l'eau de la reine de Hongrie, with a small opening in its mouth, by which the contents, drop by drop, could enter the intestine. He found he could not remove the bottle, and violent inflammation ensued. It was at last necessary to secure a boy with a small hand to extract the bottle. There is a record of a case in which a tin cup or tumbler was pushed up the rectum and then passed into the colon where it caused gangrene and death. It was found to measure 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 by two inches. There is a French case in which a preserve-pot three inches in diameter was introduced into the rectum, and had to be broken and extracted piece by piece.
Cloquet had a patient who put into his rectum a beer glass and a preserving pot. Montanari removed from the rectum of a man a mortar pestle 30 cm. long, and Poulet mentions a pederast who accidentally killed himself by introducing a similar instrument, 55 cm. long, which perforated his intestine. Studsgaard mentions that in the pathologic collection at Copenhagen there is a long, smooth stone, 17 cm. long, weighing 900 gm., which a peasant had introduced into his rectum to relieve prolapsus. The stone was extracted in 1756 by a surgeon named Frantz Dyhr. Jeffreys speaks of a person who, to stop diarrhea, introduced into his rectum a piece of wood measuring seven inches.
There is a remarkable case recorded of a stick in the anus of a man of sixty, the superior extremity in the right hypochondrium, the inferior in the concavity of the sacrum. The stick measured 32 cm. in length; the man recovered. It is impossible to comprehend this extent of straightening of the intestine without great twisting of the mesocolon. Tompsett mentions that he was called to see a workman of sixty-five, suffering from extreme rectal