Medical, chirurgical and anatomical cases and observations / Translated from the German original by George Wirgman [With preface by P. Shaw and introduction by D. Cox].

Heister, Lorenz, 1683-1758

Date:: 1755

Credit: Medical, chirurgical and anatomical cases and observations / Translated from the German original by George Wirgman [With preface by P. Shaw and introduction by D. Cox]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

48/764 (page 10)

$men, thorax, and head. The dodlor, coming to the parts of generation, found, upon inflating the penis, that it was of an enormous flze, but the tefles very fmall ^ each tefticle not being larger than an acorn. OBSERVATION IX. Of a mortal wound of the head from a blow, at the public examination of which, upon opening the abdomen^ many angular fonei were found in the gall-bladder. H E before-mentioned Dr. Mdller, on account of his {kill and emi- nence in the practice of phyfic, was called to Wetzlar, where he read courfes of medical lectures. He had not been there long before he was fent for into the country, upon the following accident : two country fel¬ lows having fought a long time with their fifts, at lafl one of them, get¬ ting hold ^f the leg of a {tool, {truck the other with fuch violence on the head, that he fell down and died immediately on the fpot: whether he received more blows than one, I cannot tell. At the public judicial di{re(fl:ion of this body, .the dodior took me and two or three more pupils along with him : the {kull, on one lide, was found fo much beaten inwards, that it had penetrated the brain, and en¬ tirely dellroyed its texture ; and hence arofe the caufe of his death. Hereupon, as is cullomary at fuch examinations, the abdomen and tho¬ rax were opened, and all the vifcera found perfedly found; but, as I was feeling under the liver for the gall-bladder and its duds, I obferved an hard- nefs and inequality of the bladder, and a rattling j and being curious to know the caufe, I opened the vcfica fellea, and found contained therein nineteen angular {tones, fome of a blackifli, others of a green and yellow colour like marble : every one prefent took fome of thefe {tones, and thofe which I brought away I have ever flnee preferved in- my cabinet. We underftood from the by{l;anders, tliat this man had always been a troublefome, hafly, paflionate fellow, quarrelling and fighting for very •trifles; till at lalt, meeting with his match, he loft his life. Note, It is difficult to determine whether thefe concretions, frequently found in the gall-bladder and its duds, upon the diffedion of choleric perfons, are formed from a drying up, or too great heat of gall, and fo become like {tones ; or whether they derive their origin from other caufes, afterwards irritating the gall-duds, and bringing on an increafed motion and perturbation of the blood. But fince that time, I have fre¬ quently met with thefe gall-{tones in my difledions of a great number of bodies, in Holland and the Netherlands, during the five years I remained c . in$