Indications for Opening Abdomen

I PRoPose to consider this subject especially from the ,point of view of country practice. It is one of those questions which is most prominent at the present time, for the all-sufficient reason that upon it turns in many cases the life or death of the patient. If any one should ask why such cases come now so frequently into question, I have no doubt as to the answer-it is simply this, that in former days they were overlooked. In such cases a name was given as the diagnosis, either a general term, or the case was labelled on account of some symptom to which attention was chiefly drawn. It was sought to relieve the patient's ~symptoms, and the disease was left to chance. If indeed such a case were submitted to a post-mortem examination, the record did not distinguish cause from effect, so that no emphasis was laid upon what might have been done at an early stage of the affection. Of this explanation, that the cases to be referred to were formerly overlooked, one might occupy the rest of the paper in recounting instances. I recall an excursus in Dr. Matthews Duncan's lectures