shot wound in which the balls lodged in the vertebral
canal, two of the patients recovering. He adds some remarks on the
division of the spinal cord without immediate death.

Ford mentions a gunshot wound of the spinal cord, the patient living
ten days; after death the ball was found in the ascending aorta. Henley
speaks of a mulatto of twenty-four who was stabbed in the back with a
knife. The blade entered the body of the 6th dorsal vertebra, and was
so firmly embedded that the patient could be raised entirely clear of
the bed by the knife alone. An ultimate recovery ensued.

Although the word hernia can be construed to mean the protrusion of any
viscus from its natural cavity through normal or artificial openings in
the surrounding structures, the usual meaning of the word is protrusion
of the abdominal contents through the parietes--what is commonly spoken
of as rupture. Hernia may be congenital or acquired, or may be single
or multiple--as many as five having been seen in one individual. More
than two-thirds of cases of rupture suffer from inguinal hernia In the
oblique form of inguinal hernia the abdominal contents descend along
the inguinal canal to the outer side of the epigastric artery, and
enter the scrotum in the male, and the labium majus in the female. In
this form of hernia the size of the sac is sometimes enormous, the
accompanying illustration showing extreme cases of both scrotal and
labial hernia. Umbilical hernia may be classed under three heads:
congenital, infantile, and adult. Congenital umbilical hernia occurs
most frequently in children, and is brought about by the failure of the
abdominal walls to close. When of large size it may contain not only
the intestines, but various other organs, such as the spleen, liver,
etc. In some monsters all the abdominal contents are contained in the
hernia. Infantile umbilical hernia is common, and appears after the
separation of the umbilical cord; it is caused by the yielding of the
cicatrix in this situation. It never reaches a large size, and shows a
tendency to spontaneous cure. Adult umbilical hernia rarely commences
in infancy. It is most commonly seen in persons with pendulous bellies,
and is sometimes of enormous size, in addition to the ordinary
abdominal contents, containing even the stomach and uterus. A few years
since there was a man in Philadelphia past middle age, the victim of
adult umbilical hernia so pendulous that while walking he had to