In our examination of the work before us, we shall endeavour to present to our readers a clear view of the facts and deductions of the author, with an occasional comment upon some of the opinions which he has advanced. We shall follow, however, a somewhat different arrangement from that adopted by Dr. Beaumont.The subject upon which the experiments of the latter were performed, Avas a young man, of a good constitution, robust and healthy, who, on the Gth of June, 1822, he being then eighteen years of age, was accidentally wounded by the discharge of a musket loaded with buck-shot. The load entered his body posteriorly, and in an oblique direction, forwards and inwards, literally blowing off a portion of the integuments and muscles ofihe size of a man's hand, fracturing and carrying away the anterior half of the sixth rib ; fracturing the fifth ; lacerating the lower portion of the left lobe of the lungs and the diaphragm, and perforating the stomach. On examination, twenty-five or thirty minutes after the accident, a portion of the lung, as large as a turkey's egg, was found protruding through the exterior wound, lacerated and burnt, and immediately below this, was " another protrusion, which, on further examination, proved to he a portion of the stomach, lacerated through all its coats, and pouring out the food " that had been eaten in the morning, "through an orifice large enough to admit the forefinger."It is unnecessary, on the present occasion, to follow out the surgical details of the accident and its treatment. For seventeen days every thing that was taken by the mouth soon passed out at the wound, and the only manner in "which the patient was sustained was by nutritious injections per anum. During this period alvine evacuations could not be obtained, notwithstanding cathartic enemata were given, and various other means adopted to promote them. As soon, however, as compresses and adhesive straps could be applied over the opening into the stomach, and food was retained in the latter, by the aid of purgative injections, a very hard, black, fetid stool was procured, followed by several similar ones ; after which the bowels became quite regular, and continued so." No sickness, nor unusual irritation of the stomach, not even the slightest nausea, was manifest during the whole time; and after the fourth week, the appetite became good, digestion regular, the alvine evacuations natural, and all the functions of the system perfect and healthy.By the adhesion of the sides of the protruded portions of the stomach to the pleura costalis and the external wound, a free exit was afforded to the contents of that organ, and effusion into the abdominal cavity was thereby prevented."Cicatrization and contraction of the external wound commenced in the fifth Week; the stomach became more firmly attached to the pleura, but the orifice * Not having been able to procurc a copy of Dr. Beaumont's work in time for this Number of the Journal, we have transferred to our columns an admirable analysis of it from a recent Number of our e...
