Peritonitis in the thoracic cavity is a curious condition which may be brought about by a penetrating wound of the diaphragm. In 1872 Sargent communicated to the Boston Society for Medical Improvement an account of a postmortem examination of a woman of thirty-seven, in whom he had observed major injuries twenty years before. At that time, while sliding down some hay from a loft, she was impaled on the handle of a pitchfork which entered the vagina, penetrated 22 inches, and was arrested by an upper left rib, which it fractured; further penetration was possibly prevented by the woman's feet striking the floor. Happily there was no injury to the bladder, uterus, or intestines. The principal symptoms were hemorrhage from the vagina and intense pain near the fractured rib, followed by emphysema. The pitchfork-handle was withdrawn, and was afterward placed in the museum of the Society, the abrupt bloody stain, 22 inches from the rounded end, being plainly shown. During twenty years the woman could never lie on her right side or on her back, and for half of this time she spent most of the night in the sitting position. Her last illness attracted little attention because her life had been one of suffering. After death it was found that the cavity in the left side of the chest was entirely filled with abdominal viscera. The opening in the diaphragm was four inches in diameter, and through it had passed the stomach, transverse colon, a few inches of the descending colon, and a considerable portion of the small intestines. The heart was crowded to the right of the sternum and was perfectly healthy, as was also the right lung. The left lung was compressed to the size of a hand.
There were marked signs of peritonitis, and in the absence of sufficient other symptoms, it could be said that this woman had died of peritonitis in the left thoracic cavity.
Extended tolerance of foreign bodies loose in the thoracic cavity has been noticed. Tulpins mentions a person who had a sponge shut up in his thoracic cavity for six weeks; it was then voided by the mouth, and the man recovered. Fabricius Hildanus relates a similar instance in which a sponge-tent was expelled by coughing.
Arnot reports a case in which a piece of iron was found in a cyst in the thorax, where it had remained for fourteen years. Leach gives a case in which a bullet was impacted in the chest for forty-two years. Snyder speaks of a fragment of knife-blade which was lodged in the chest twelve years and finally coughed up.
Foreign Bodies in the Bronchi.--Walnut kernels, coins, seeds, beans, corks, and even sponges have been removed from the bronchi. In the presence of Sir Morrell Mackenzie, Johnston of Baltimore removed a toy locomotive from the subglottic cavity by tracheotomy and thyreotomy. The child had gone to sleep with the toy in his mouth and had subsequently swallowed it. Eldredge presented a hopeless consumptive, who as a child of five had swallowed an umbrella ferrule while whistling through it, and who expelled it in a fit of coughing twenty-three years after. Eve of Nashville mentions a boy who placed a fourpenny nail in a spool to make a whistle, and, by a violent inspiration, drew the nail deep into the left bronchus. It was removed by tracheotomy.
Liston removed a large piece of bone from the right bronchus of a woman, and Houston tells of a case in which a molar tooth was lodged in a bronchus causing death on the eleventh day. Warren mentions spontaneous expulsion of a horse-shoe nail from the bronchus of a boy of two and one-half years. From Dublin, in 1844, Houston reports the case of a girl of sixteen who inhaled the wooden peg of a small fiddle and in a fit of coughing three months afterward expelled it from the lungs. In 1849 Solly communicated the case of a man who inhaled a pebble placed on his tongue to relieve thirst. On removal this pebble weighed 144grains. Watson of Murfreesboro removed a portion of an umbrella rib from a trachea, but as he failed to locate or remove the ferrule, the case terminated fatally. Brigham mentions a child of five who was seized with a fit of coughing while she had a small brass nail in her mouth; pulmonary phthisis ensued, and in one year she died. At the postmortem examination the nail was found near the bifurcation of the right bronchus, and, although colored black, was not corroded.
Marcacci reported an observation of the removal of a bean from the bronchus of a child of three and a half years. The child swallowed the bean while playing, immediately cried, and became hoarse. No one having noticed the accident, a diagnosis of croup was made and four leeches were applied to the neck. The dyspnea augmented during the night, and there was a whistling sound with each respiratory movement. On the next day the medical attendants suggested the possibility of a foreign body in the larynx.