Richter's Hernia or Partial Enterocele

Abstract

THE variety of strangulated hernia with which the present paper deals has attracted but little attention in this country.In the majority of English text-books it receives no notice, and in those treatises in which it is men- tioned it is usually disposed of in a few lines.The hernia is rare, but not so rare as to be merely a curiosity.The only two specimens of it that exist in the museum of the College of Surgeons were recently presented by myself, and yet, on the other hand, I have collected over fifty recorded instances of this peculiar lesion.The main features of the hernia are these.A part only of the circumference of the bowel is engaged and strangulated in the hernial orifice; the involved segment may rapidly pass into gangrene, and yet the lumen of the gut remain free; the portion snared projects from the surface of the intestine as a small, rounded, bud-like diverticulum.