HEPATIC TRAUMA

Abstract

This paper is a survey of the cases of sixty patients who had undergone hepatic trauma who were brought to the City of Detroit Receiving Hospital during the period from 1927 to 1934, inclusive, and represents with some degree of accuracy the frequency of this condition in Detroit. Practically all patients with a condition of this nature are brought into the emergency ward by police ambulance a short time after the accident. The distribution of the patients in regard to age, color and sex is shown in table 1. The majority were in the so-called age period of greatest activity. Injury to the liver in every case in this series was caused by external violence. The patients were divided into three groups: those with gunshot wounds, 68 per cent, those with trauma, such as that caused by an automobile, a street-car or a fall, 17 per cent, and those with