,
if aid is not given.

Treatment.--Purgatives should not be given. For the pain, hypodermics of
morphine are needed. Wash out the stomach for distressing vomiting. This
can be done three to four times a day. Thorough washing out of the large
bowel with injections should be practised, the warm water being allowed to
flow in from a fountain syringe and the amount carefully estimated.
Hutchinson recommends that the patient be placed under an anesthetic, the
abdomen kneaded, and a copious enema given with the hips placed high or
patient in inverted position. Then the patient should be thoroughly
shaken, first with the abdomen held downward and subsequently in the
inverted position. If this and similar measures do not succeed by the
third day surgical measures must be resorted to.

For bloating, turpentine cloths should be used, and other hot, moist
applications.

Diet.--Should be very light, if any, for a day or so.

RUPTURE (Hernia).--Hernia means a protrusion of an organ from its natural
cavity, through normal or artificial openings in the surrounding
structures. But by the term hernia, used alone, we mean the protrusion of
a portion of the abdominal contents through the walls, and that is known
by the popular term of "rupture."

[DIGESTIVE ORGANS 123]

The most common forms of rupture protrude through one of the natural
openings or weak spots in the abdominal walls, as for instance, the
inguinal (groin) and femoral canals. The femoral canal is located at the
upper and inner part of the thigh, and this place is a seat of rupture,
especially in women. Rupture may also occur at the navel, when it is
called umbilical hernia or rupture. The contents of a hernia are bowel and
omentum (a covering of the bowel) separately or together. The bowel
involved in a rupture is usually the lower portion of the small bowel, but
the large bowel is sometimes affected. A sac covers the bowel or omentum
in a rupture. This sac consists of the protruded portion of peritoneum,
which has been gradually pushed through one of the canals (inguinal or
femoral) or of the process of peritoneum, which has been carried down by
the testicle in its descent, and the connection of which with the
peritoneum of the abdomen still continues, not having been obliterated, as
it usually is before birth. The former is called an acquired rupture sac;
the latter is a congenital rupture sac, and it is found only in groin
(inguinal rupture).

Causes.--Rupt