Appearances After Death, Etc.
343. The appearances after death differ materially even in apparently
similar wounds.
A French soldier, shot through the right side of the chest at the
siege of Badajos, died in December, 1812, in Lisbon, apparently of
consecutive phthisis. The ball had gone through the chest from before
directly backward; the posterior wound was closed; the anterior one
was fistulous, and discharged a small quantity of matter, of which he
spat up daily a large quantity until he died. The lung was diseased
throughout, and contained several vomicæ or small abscesses, from which
the matter expectorated was secreted. The track of the ball was nearly
filled up, although the part immediately around was harder than usual.
The lung adhered in many places to the wall of the chest, which was
much flattened.
In other cases, portions of wadding, of leather belts, of splinters of
different lengths, pieces of buttons, and even balls, have been found
loose in the chest, showing the necessity for an especial and decided
treatment.
A French soldier was wounded by a musket-ball at the battle of
Waterloo; it penetrated the chest, fracturing the second rib, then
passed through the lung, and went out behind in nearly a straight line,
close to the spine. Left on the field of battle for five days before
he was brought to Brussels, he was nearly dead with difficulty of
breathing and other symptoms of inflammation, from which he recovered
in the course of the next ten days, under repeated bleedings and
the strictest antiphlogistic regimen. At the end of this time, when
apparently doing well, an accession of inflammation and of all his
bad symptoms took place, destroying him at the end of four weeks
from the receipt of the injury. On dissection, the lung was found
adherent to the chest by false membranes of some thickness, with a
quantity of purulent fluid in the cavity. The track of the ball was in
a suppurating state, and two pieces of rib were found in the center
of its course. The whole of the lung appeared to be filled with a
sero-purulent fluid, which could be readily squeezed out.
John Roth, of the 5th battalion of the 60th Regiment, aged twenty-nine,
had been wounded by two balls, one on the 10th of April, 1814, at the
battle of Toulouse, which grazed the left temporal bone; the other had
gone through the upper part of the right chest, in the Pyrenees, the
autumn before. Both wounds had healed. He was seized on the 8th of May,
after a little intemperance, with pains in his body and joints, pain in
the chest, and cough, with bloody expectoration; skin hot, tongue foul,
and bowels confined. On the 9th he was bled, and purged by calomel,
antimony, and salts. On the 10th symptoms augmented, pulse 120, small,
and wandering, but no pain in the head. Repeat the medicines. Head
shaved and cold applied; bleeding to ten ounces. 11th. Every symptom
increased; great pain on touching the chest; pulse 126; skin hot. On
the 12th passed his urine and feces involuntarily; and on the 13th he
died, his body being covered by petechiæ.
The head, on examination, showed pus under the dura mater, at and
behind the situation of the wound he had received. The right lung
adhered to the walls of the chest where the ball had entered and passed
out, the track made by it being very visible, indurated, and inflamed,
from the last attack: the parts otherwise sound; no fluid in the cavity.
Mr. Drummond was wounded by a pistol-ball in the back, low down, about
two inches from the spine, and three inches from the inferior angle
of the scapula; it was afterward found to have entered between the
eleventh and twelfth ribs, and to have _passed between the base of
the lung and the diaphragm_, abrading the former, and passing through
the latter into the abdomen, ultimately lodging in the fat under the
skin, over the cartilage of the eighth rib of the left side, nearly
at an opposite point in front. From the absence of all symptoms of
shock and alarm, it was hoped by some that the ball might have run
round, but on the removal of the little ball its course could not be
traced. This occurred on Friday. On Saturday morning at five o’clock
he suffered great uneasiness and difficulty of breathing, accompanied
by a particular catch or jerk in respiration, indicating a wound of
the diaphragm. The stethoscope and the ear attested the clearness of
the respiratory murmur in every part of the chest, which sounded well,
and I was satisfied the lung was not materially injured; twelve ounces
of blood were drawn with difficulty from both arms. At ten o’clock,
the jerk and difficulty of breathing being greater, the left temporal
artery was opened, as no blood could be drawn from the veins; five
ounces only could be obtained; a dose of calomel and a senna draught
had been followed by the discharge of a teaspoonful or two of blood,
leaving no doubt on my mind that the ball had penetrated the cavity
of the abdomen, as well as of the chest, and that a bowel had been
injured. With a constitution apparently unequal to bear an inflammation
of the most dangerous character, or the remedies necessary to subdue
it, the prospect was but melancholy. Thirty-six leeches were applied
around the wound in front, but they drew little blood. Pulse from
108 to 112. Dr. Hume, Mr. B. Cooper, and Mr. Jackson were added in
consultation on Monday at twelve, when the jerk became worse, the
oppression in breathing greater. Muriate of morphia, half a grain; at
two, bled to twelve ounces; blood very buffy; calomel, two grains,
opium, half a grain, every two hours. In the evening, bleeding,
repeated to fourteen ounces; no more would flow. Tuesday morning, at
five, bled again to twelve ounces. The ear now indicated effusion for
the first time. It was not, however, in sufficient quantity to render
the evacuation of the fluid necessary. After this he gradually sank,
and died on Wednesday morning. He lost on the whole fifty-six ounces of
blood. On examination after death, it was found that the ball, after
entering the cavity of the chest, had slightly abraded the left lung
at its lower and inferior edge, which was covered by recent lymph,
the lung being internally sound. The left side of the chest contained
nearly a pint of red-colored serum. The ball had perforated the
diaphragm, grazed the fat of the left kidney, passed through the great
omentum below the stomach, to the part where it was extracted, injuring
apparently no important organ in the abdomen in its transit, but giving
rise to an effusion of blood from some small vessel which had sloughed,
the blood being partly coagulated and partly diffused to the amount
of many ounces; its loss appeared to have been the immediate cause of
death.
A gamekeeper’s gun burst at the Red House, Battersea, and a small
part of the lock entered the middle of the left arm, and passed
upward into the axilla, where it could not be traced by Mr. Keate,
who saw him within an hour after the accident. The symptoms which
followed were those of inflammation of the chest, and were subdued by
active treatment; the wound healed, and he returned to his occupation
in Wiltshire. Having exposed himself to the night air some weeks
afterward, the inflammation of the chest returned, and he died. On
opening the thorax, one edge of the bit of iron was found impacted
in the surface of the lung, the other edge was rubbing against the
inside of the sixth rib, which was nearly worn through by the constant
friction it underwent during respiration; there was also a mark on the
pericardium as of a cicatrix, and of a graze on the surface of the
heart.
Among the French prisoners in Lisbon, in the spring of 1813, I saw a
man in whose chest a ball had entered midway between the fifth and
sixth ribs, and lodged; from this a constant and considerable discharge
of purulent matter took place. The ball was found after death lying
between the diaphragm and the spine, surrounded by coagulable lymph,
and adhering by its envelope to the spine and diaphragm at the angle
formed between them; there was a very thickened pleura costalis; the
lung was shrunk and attached by membrane almost equally thickened
across the chest, the lower part of which was filled in the upright
position by the discharge, which was only evacuated in quantity when
the opening of the wound was made dependent.
A case was met with after the battle of Waterloo, among the French
wounded, which was somewhat similar. A portion of rib had been
driven in, and the assistant-surgeon was aware that the ball could
occasionally be felt. The man died at the end of a fortnight, the
cavity containing a quantity of sero-purulent bloody matter. The lung
had been injured by the ball, which had fallen loose into the cavity of
the chest.
344. The removal of splinters of bone, or of other foreign bodies from
the lung, has occupied the attention of surgeons from the earliest
periods, and some of them proposed to draw a piece of cambric or other
things through the chest, for the purpose of removing them. These
extreme measures have been abandoned; but there can be no doubt of the
propriety of removing as many of these causes of irritation as can be
either seen or felt. If the ball have broken a rib, the orifice of
entrance especially should be enlarged as early and as carefully as
possible, so as to give an opportunity for the removal of the splinters
and of all angular points of bone which may be turned inward. A little
addition to the original opening can do no harm, and if the lung should
not collapse, or should it be adherent, it will enable the surgeon to
see whether any splinters are impacted in it, and to remove them. It
is possible that the end of the finger even may be introduced, and the
lung felt, if it should not have receded too far; as it is insensible
to such an operation, no evil will ensue; but all probings with small,
sharp-pointed instruments should be avoided. That wadding, buttons,
pieces of cloth, and of bone have been frequently coughed up, I have
had experience; but although it is said that even balls have been thus
brought up, I have not had an opportunity of seeing them.
An officer was wounded by a musket-ball on the 9th of July, 1745; it
passed through the chest, entering in front, fracturing the seventh
rib near its junction with the cartilage attaching it to the sternum,
and passing out behind near the angle of the same rib, which it
again broke, together with the one immediately below it. M. Guerin
enlarged the openings of entrance and of exit to the extent of nearly
two inches, by dividing the pleura, the intercostal muscles, and the
integuments from within outward. Several splinters of the rib injuring
the lung were removed, the smallest of which might be half an inch
or six lines long, by two wide. A tent was then passed through the
wound. The patient suffered much, and spat a great deal of blood; pulse
feeble, extremities cold. He was bled three times the first night,
and twenty-six times during the first fifteen days, the seton being
retained in the chest the whole time. On the twenty-second day, a
piece of cloth was felt by the finger, after removing the seton, and
was extracted; a splinter was also felt, but so deeply that it could
not be removed without enlarging the incision. As the inflammatory
symptoms were re-excited, he was bled for the twenty-ninth time. On
the thirtieth day these symptoms had so much increased that the seton
was withdrawn, under the impression that it was doing more harm than
good, and the thirty-first bleeding was effected. The next morning the
patient complained of something pricking him within, and the parts left
between the two original wounds, after the incisions which had already
been made, were divided. The chest was now open from the articulation
of the head of the rib with the sixth and seventh vertebræ behind,
nearly to the cartilage in front; and the whole course of the ball was
seen; it had made a groove in the surface of the lung, in the substance
of which a splinter was sticking. This was extracted, and the wound
dressed simply, after which the patient gradually improved, and was
quite cured in four months.
The two first incisions for the removal of the splinters were
necessary. The tent or seton drawn through the chest was an error;
and although the fortunate result of the case depended probably on
the removal of the splinters of bone sticking in the lung, few would
survive the formidable operation performed for their removal. The case
is suggestive and instructive.
345. When the lung can be seen through the opening made by the ball,
or after some moderate enlargement for the purpose of removing any
splintered pieces of rib or any spiculæ which can be felt or seen, the
object is attained. I have not had experience of the utility of large
incisions for the purpose of making the lung more visible, although the
importance of extracting foreign substances in the first instance is
inculcated, provided their situation can be ascertained.
A Spanish soldier, wounded at the battle of Toulouse, was brought to
me the same evening, shot through the right side of the chest, between
the fifth and sixth ribs, one of which was fractured, the ball passing
out nearly opposite behind. On removing the splinters by the aid of
an incision, I found that the lung was adherent to the inside of the
chest, and was enabled to withdraw from within the lung some splinters
of bone and a part of his coat. He left Toulouse apparently doing well;
but natives of warm climates rarely suffer from such severe attacks of
inflammation as those of northern habits and constitutions.
A soldier of the German Legion was wounded at the battle of Waterloo,
the 13th of June, 1815, by a musket-ball, which entered between the
seventh and eighth ribs in front, about two inches from the sternum on
the right side, passing out behind. He died in York Hospital, Chelsea,
in the month of January following, where he was taken after some
drunken fits, which induced an attack of pneumonia. A fistulous opening
existed, and had discharged a little matter, which was gradually
diminishing; the sinus was from six to seven inches long, extending
into and nearly through the base of the lung, and was lined by a
mucous membrane, the lung around being thickened to the extent of from
a quarter to half an inch. There was but little fluid in the cavity,
although the lung on both sides showed signs of recent inflammation,
without which he would in all probability have recovered. The orifices
of entrance and of exit through the lung adhered to the walls of the
chest, thus separating the track of the ball from the general cavity
of the pleura, which would in all probability have led to his ultimate
recovery, if it had not been for his intemperance.
346. When a ball, or portion of bone, leather, cloth, wadding, or
other foreign substance is driven into the cavity of the pleura, it
usually gives rise to fatal results, constituting, therefore, cases of
the greatest importance, to which attention has not been sufficiently
given, but on which too much cannot be bestowed, if life is to be
preserved by the art of surgery. The neglect of these cases has
probably arisen from the insufficiency of the means of ascertaining
their nature--an insufficiency which auscultation has in some measure
removed, and which the science of surgery may still further diminish.
The presence of a ball, a piece of bone, or of any other substance,
lying upon or rolling about on the pleura covering the diaphragm, must
give rise to more or less irritation and inflammation, and consequently
to suppuration, or the formation of matter upon the surface of that
membrane in its thickened state, until, in all probability, the foreign
substance has been removed or the person has wasted away and perished.
A dragoon of the King’s German Legion was wounded between the eighth
and ninth ribs at the battle of Salamanca. The ball had entered
and lodged; the symptoms were severe; the breathing laborious. As
the discharge from the wound was not free, I enlarged the opening,
removed some scales of bone, a bit of cloth which stuck between the
ribs, the lower of which was broken, and evacuated a great quantity
of bloody-colored fluid, not purulent. After a few days the discharge
became purulent, and, as he felt something, as he thought, roll
within him, which he supposed might be the ball, I contemplated
again enlarging the wound, so as to be able to see whether anything
were loose in the cavity; but a sudden relapse of inflammation, from
drinking some brandy, carried him off. On examination, the ball was
found lying loose on the diaphragm in the chest, and might, with some
enlargement of the wound, have been extracted.
A French prisoner of war, who had been wounded near Almaraz by a
musket-ball, which had lodged in the left side of the chest, was sent
to Lisbon in 1812, with a considerable discharge through the wound,
and died there. The ball was found in the angle formed between the
diaphragm and the spine, enveloped in coagulable lymph, by which it was
attached to the spine; there were some splinters of bone inclosed with
it.
A soldier of the 29th Regiment was wounded at Talavera by a
musket-ball, which penetrated the right side of the chest, between
the fourth and fifth ribs, and lodged. He died the day after, and on
opening the body, I found that the ball had passed through the lung,
and was lying loose on the ribs behind, near the union of the diaphragm
with the spine.
Major-General Sir Robert Crawford was wounded at the foot of the
smaller breach at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, by a musket-ball,
which passed through the posterior fold of the armpit and entered the
side of the chest in the axilla by a small opening or slit, apparently
too small to allow a ball to pass through. I saw him a few minutes
afterward with Dr. Robb, under whose care he remained, when, from the
general anxiety manifested, I was satisfied as to the severity of the
injury. The symptoms were not at first urgent, but their continuance
and augmentation, in spite of the most rigorous antiphlogistic
treatment, led, in a few days, to his death. On examination of the
body, the ball was found lying on the diaphragm; the cavity of the
chest contained a large quantity of very turbid serum; false membranes
had formed on the lung, which was compressed toward the spine, and at
the upper part retained the mark of an injury as from a ball which had
not had force enough to penetrate and lodge.
Baron Larrey has had the good fortune to meet with some remarkable
cases of this kind. In the first he did not see the man for some weeks
after the wound had been inflicted, the ball entering at the upper
edge of the fourth rib, about an inch from its junction with the
cartilage. By means of a bent and flexible sound introduced through the
wound, he distinguished a hard, metallic substance at the bottom of
the cavity of the chest, which he supposed to be the ball, nearly in
the situation of the place where the operation for empyema is usually
performed. This operation having been done, about twelve ounces of pus
escaped, and the ball was discovered rather flattened. It was easily
removed with the aid of a pair of polypus forceps. After this there was
every prospect of recovery, until the patient, having unfortunately one
day drank too much brandy, was attacked by enteritis, and died.
William Barrett, of the Life Guards, a middle aged, muscular man, of
full habit, was wounded by a musket-ball at the battle of Waterloo;
it fractured the third and fourth ribs behind on the left side, and
broke the left arm. He was brought to Brussels, where the inflammatory
symptoms were subdued by repeated general and local bleedings, and the
other ordinary but strictly antiphlogistic means, during the first six
weeks, by which time the external wound had nearly closed, and no trace
of the ball could be perceived. At the end of this time, Staff-Surgeon
Collier, now Inspector-General of Hospitals, under whose care he was,
and who furnished me with these particulars of the case, which I saw in
Brussels, finding that his symptoms became worse, that he had rigors
and evening exacerbations, and that the difficulty of breathing had
increased almost to suffocation, decided on opening into the cavity of
the chest and following the course of the ball. This he did by a deep
incision, which enabled him to remove some pieces of the ribs, which
were denuded but not detached. A bag-like protrusion was then felt
between the ribs near their angles, which was opened, and nearly two
pints of thick, fetid pus escaped, the relief which followed being as
complete as sudden. The wound was dressed from the bottom, and every
means adopted, except introducing a tent, to prevent its closing, but
in vain; the opening closed, and matter again collected, requiring a
second incision for its removal. Between these two operations small
bleedings were resorted to most beneficially. A short gum-elastic
catheter was introduced into the cavity of the chest after the second
incision; very little matter, however, was secreted. From this time he
gradually recovered, and was sent to England, cured, in November.
347. The presence of a ball, rolling about on the diaphragm, can now be
ascertained by means of the stethoscope at an early period, so as to
admit of an operation being undertaken with confidence for its removal;
while the knowledge acquired by auscultation or percussion, of the
filling of the chest by fluid, whether serous, bloody, or purulent, is
at the same time incontestibly demonstrated. The presence of a ball,
or of any other foreign body, decides the question as to the place
where the opening into the chest should be made. On this point the
information derived from the practice of the French surgeons in Algeria
is valuable.
M. Baudens, whose labors I again refer to with great pleasure, says
that he has also seen splinters of bone and even a ball, surrounded by
a cyst formed by the pseudo-membranes of inflammation, cut off from
the general cavity, and confined in the angular space formed behind
between the rib, the diaphragm, and the spine. In one case, M. Baudens
introduced a _sonde à dard_, such as is used in the high operation
for the stone, between the second and third ribs, and made it project
behind between the eleventh and twelfth. He then cut down upon it, and
extracted a ball and some splinters of the rib. The wound thus made
was then closed, the upper one being sucked dry daily by a pump. The
patient recovered in forty days.
A., 54th Regiment, was brought to the hospital at Algiers, on the 22d
of October, 1833, wounded eleven days before by a ball, which, having
broken the right clavicles was lost in the chest, without any sign of
effusion having taken place; he appeared to be going on well, until
suddenly he complained of pain about the middle of the sixth rib,
which could not be removed by the means employed, and was accompanied
by a great discharge from the wound. On the 10th of November he died.
The clavicle and the first rib had been fractured, and an abscess
had formed behind them, the size of a hen’s egg, containing several
splinters of bone, which had stuck in and afterward separated from the
lung. The ball had passed from above downward and outward, forming a
sinus, which terminated at the middle of the sixth rib, to which this
part of the lung was attached; the posterior three-fourths of this
canal were closed; the anterior fourth contained two splinters of
bone, one of which was about to fall into the abscess in front. The
sixth rib was broken, although it had not been perceived during life;
and a small digital cavity was formed at this part in it by the ball,
surrounded by portions of lymph, floating loosely from its edges; from
this the ball had been detached, and had given rise to the inflammation
which destroyed him. The ball had fallen on the diaphragm, where it was
lying loose, surrounded by a quantity of purulent matter.
M. Baudens says himself, and rightly, that the operation of opening
into the chest should have been performed in the eleventh intercostal
space, and that the wound in front should have been enlarged.
M. Baudens relates another case, in which the posterior wound,
situated near the angle of the tenth rib, had healed, the anterior
one, half an inch below the clavicle, giving issue to an abundant and
weakening suppuration. The lung above this was permeable to air, but
the respiratory murmur could not be heard below it. To draw off this
offensive fluid, he adapted an empty caoutchouc bag to a gum-elastic
canula, which he affixed against the orifice of the wound, and thus
sucked out six pints in five days. Some days later the wound behind
reopened, and a piece of bone was discharged from it, which saved the
man’s life. Two years afterward he was seen in good health.
The desire to have as dependent an opening in the chest as possible in
these injuries has been manifested by all surgeons of experience; and
the interspaces between the ninth and tenth, and between the tenth and
eleventh ribs, have been often selected for this purpose; but as the
operation was formerly done with the trocar, the abdomen was as often
opened as the thorax, and death was frequently thus caused, even if it
would not have been occasioned by the disease. To prevent, or to avoid
this evil, M. Baudens advises its being performed at three fingers’
distance from the spine, by incision, and he says he has frequently
done it with success, although he does not give any circumstantial
directions as to the operative method to be pursued. I therefore caused
several experiments and dissections to be made in the workroom of the
College of Surgeons by Mr. Quekett, with the following results:--
348.--1. That a trocar and canula pushed in between the eleventh and
twelfth ribs, in a diagonal direction upward, on a line with the angle
of the ribs generally, will in the _dead body_ invariably enter the
cavity of the chest without injuring the diaphragm.
2. That the same operation performed on the _living body_ would, in
all probability, if done at the moment of expiration, first enter the
thorax, then pierce the diaphragm, and thus open into the cavity of
the abdomen,--a difference in result to be explained by reference to
the anatomy and physiology of the parts concerned; showing that this
operation, when required on man, should always be done cautiously by
incision, and not by puncture with the trocar and canula.
On examining the lower part of the chest from within, after removing
the pleura, the diaphragm is seen forming the boundary between the
thorax and the abdomen, commencing from the transverse process of the
first lumbar vertebra, and forming an arch under which the upper part
of the psoas muscle passes, (the ligamentum arcuatum proprium.) From
this part extends another aponeurotic arch along the lower border,
to the end of the last rib, called the _false ligamentum arcuatum_,
(ligament cintré du diaphragme of Cruveilhier,) which is nothing
more than the upper edge of the anterior layer of the aponeurosis of
the transversalis muscle, folded upon itself in all its extent. The
diaphragm is afterward attached to the lower border of the twelfth,
and in succession to the eleventh, tenth, ninth, eighth, seventh, and
sometimes to the sixth, ribs, counting from below upward. The external
intercostal muscles are distinctly seen between the ribs, extending
from the spine until they meet and are concealed by the fibers of
the internal intercostal muscles, near the angles of the ribs. The
vessels and nerves, after passing on the external intercostal muscles,
subsequently run between them and the internal ones.
The lower intercostal arteries arise from the aorta on each side, and
before they enter the space between the ribs give off a branch passing
backward to the vertebral canal and the posterior muscles of the spine.
The eleventh and twelfth intercostal arteries, covered at first by the
pillar of the diaphragm, ascend on leaving the vertebræ to reach the
under edges of the ribs, and are accompanied by a vein and nerve. The
tenth intercostal artery, and those immediately above it, run almost
horizontally, and nearly in the mid-spaces of the ribs, as far as
their angles, at which part a small artery is commonly given off, which
descends from the main trunk at an acute angle to the rib below, and
may be injured in opening into the chest, and be perhaps mistaken, in
operating, for the intercostal artery itself. From the angles each
artery runs in a groove in the under edge of the rib as far as the
anterior third, when they all become very much diminished in size,
and, leaving the grooves, run in the middle of the intercostal spaces,
until lost in their different anastomoses with the branches of the
epigastric, phrenic, lumbar, and circumflexa ilii arteries.
In making an opening into the chest between the tenth and eleventh, or
between the eleventh and twelfth ribs, the artery will not be injured,
provided the opening be made below the middle of the intercostal space,
which is wider between the eleventh and twelve ribs than between those
above it. The vein is situated above the artery, and proceeds to the
vena azygos major on the right, and to the smaller azygos vein on the
left side.
The intercostal nerves are the anterior branches of the dorsal
nerves, and lie below the arteries under the pleura upon the external
intercostal muscles, until they approach the angles of the ribs, where
they enter between the layers of the intercostal muscles.
It is worthy of observation that the pleura is necessarily continued
over the inside of the twelfth rib to line the different attachments of
the diaphragm, and that an incision may always be made into the chest
above this point, if done carefully.
On removing the integuments of the back, covering the muscles and
the lower ribs, the broad expanse of the _latissimus dorsi_ muscle
is brought into view, extending from the ilium and spine upward
and outward, and covering all the parts of importance beneath in
the operation to be described. On the removal of the lower part of
this muscle the _serratus posticus inferior_ is seen, of a somewhat
quadrilateral form, arising by a thin aponeurosis common to it and to
the latissimus dorsi, from the spinous processes of the three superior
lumbar vertebræ and the two inferior dorsal, and proceeding upward and
outward to be inserted by four flat, tendinous digitations into the
four lower ribs.
If this muscle be separated from its origins and turned outward, or
divided in the middle, and its two portions reflected, the posterior
spinal or long muscles running in and filling up the groove or hollow
of the side of the spine will now be distinctly seen, composed chiefly
of the sacro-lumbalis and the longissimus dorsi muscles, sometimes
called as a whole the _erector spinæ_ or the _sacro-spinal_ muscle.
This, which forms a thick mass over the beginning of the tenth,
eleventh, and twelfth ribs, is not to be divided or interfered with
beyond a very few at most of its external fibers; the opening into the
chest about to be made should begin at its external edge and go through
the external intercostal muscle, which is now exposed on a plane below
it.
The eleventh and twelfth ribs, unlike all those which precede them,
except the first, have only one surface of articulation with the
corresponding vertebræ, to which they are attached, instead of two
facettes articulating--one with the body of the vertebra above, the
other with that below. They form, particularly the twelfth, a more
acute angle with the spine than the other, which gives to them their
greater degree of obliquity, while the freedom of their cartilaginous
extremities enables the twelfth, particularly, to be depressed or
separated by a moderate force from the rib above to a greater extent
than at any other part, by which means a foreign body of larger size
may be removed from between them more readily than elsewhere.
349. _Operation._--The eleventh and twelfth ribs having been distinctly
traced, and the obliquity of their descent from the spine having been
clearly made out, the patient ought, if possible, to be placed on a
stool, with the upper part of the chest supported by a pillow on a
table before him. An incision should then be made over the intercostal
space between these ribs, three inches long and slightly curved,
through the integuments down to the latissimus dorsi muscle, and as the
mass of long spinal muscles is usually three inches in width, and can
in general be seen, the incision should commence two inches from but
between the spinous processes of the eleventh and twelfth vertebræ,
and be continued obliquely or diagonally downward in the course of the
interspace between these ribs. The latissimus dorsi and the serratus
posticus inferior muscles having been divided at the upper part where
they cover the longissimus dorsi or the long spinal muscular mass
alluded to, its edge becomes apparent; from this point the latissimus
and the serratus are to be further divided downward. The external
intercostal muscle being thus exposed, its fibers should be scratched
through or separated in the middle of the interspace between the ribs,
which can now be seen as well as felt. A director should be introduced
below the muscle, on which it may be carefully cut through, as well as
any fibers of the internal intercostal muscle which may extend as far
as the wound thus made. The pleura will then be exposed, and if the
cavity of the chest contain fluid in any quantity, it can scarcely fail
to project in such a manner as to convey to the finger the assurance
of its being beneath. An opening may then be carefully made into it at
the upper part of the incision close to the external vertical fibers
of the spinal mass of muscles, _at the moment of inspiration_, and
on the existence of fluid being ascertained by its discharge, the
opening should be enlarged by a director previously introduced under
the pleura, the patient being desired to draw a full breath at the
time, in order that the diaphragm may descend as low as possible. If
there should not be any fluid in the chest, the diaphragm, in ascending
during expiration, may be applied to the inside of the pleura lining
the chest as high even as the fifth rib, counting from above, and might
easily be divided with the pleura, if great care were not taken to make
the opening during the process of inspiration.
In all cases of wounds of the chest, in which auscultation points out
the presence of a ball rolling loose on the diaphragm, this operation
should be performed for its removal, and may save the life of the
sufferer. It would, perhaps, have done so in the case of Sir Robert
Crawford. At a later period the presence of a foreign body, perhaps,
can only be known by the sounds or defect of sounds which may be
observed at the back part of the chest, in which the ball or other
foreign bodies lodge or become enveloped by matters confining them in
that situation.