Case of communication with the stomach, through the abdominal parietes, produced by ulceration from external pressure : with observations on the cases of gastro-cutaneous fistulæ already recorded / by Charles Murchison, M.D.

  • Murchison, Charles, 1830-1879.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of communication with the stomach, through the abdominal parietes, produced by ulceration from external pressure : with observations on the cases of gastro-cutaneous fistulæ already recorded / by Charles Murchison, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    house for an uncle; when at length she took a fancy that she had heart disease, for which a surgeon inserted a seton in the vicinity of the scrobiculus cordis, and kept it open for some years. It was in November, 1853, that Dr, Keith again, and only by accident, saw her. The seton had at length ulcerated out; but he was told that the wound would not heal, and his opinion was asked. He examined a deep, round, fiery-looking ulcer, exactly midway between the umbilicus and the ensiform cartilage, of the exact shape and size of an old copper penny of the reign of George III, which she had very nimbly nipped out with her nail, along with the dressings. Dr. Keith warned her of her folly, and explained to her the risk she ran of ulcerating a passage into her belly, which might prove fatal. She evidently paid little attention to what was said, and Dr. Keith refused to take charge of the case. At length, after fully three years' pressure by a belt, of a copper coin over the ulcerating surface, she was seized with irritability of the stomach, bringing up bile and blood. Along with these symptoms, she had much fever for five days; and on one of these days, viz., March 2d, 1854, she discovered, on removing the dressings from the wound, that a piece of biscuit and a portion of orange peel, along with a quantity of fluid, escaped from the opening. For many days after, the whole food swallowed was discharged by the opening, and she became greatly exhausted. By the 23d of March, however, her own shrewdness taught her to fit a plug of gutta percha into the wound, so as actually to cork it up. This plug, somewhat enlarged on two subsequent occasions, as the opening has become a little larger, and kept in situ by a belt round the waist, has ever since sufficed to retain the gi'cat bulk of her food within the stomach, where it would appear to be well and quickly digested; her flesh, for a naturally spare person, being well kept up. Her general health has improved, and her hysterical symptoms have, for the most part, disappeared, from the period that the opening was established; she having now something special with which to occupy her mind and take up her