calling off by nature of all her defenses, showed that the battle
was won. All the defense yet left was the hard induration, "firm,
flat resistance." This induration was quite sufficient to prevent
reinfection, had there not been something out of the regular order
to interfere. In this case there was a prostrated muscular system.
The narcotic had left the patient without muscular power. The
starchy food created gas, and the bowels, not having their natural
tone, gave way to the gas until there was _"Meteorism,"_ not
tympanites but meteorism which means to blow up or distend all that
is possible.

Such a state as that means mechanical interference with every organ
in the thoracic, abdominal and pelvic cavities, and, besides the
pressure and interference in drainage and the blowing into the
abscess cavity and into the pyogenic membrane gas loaded with
infection, there was an almost fatal interference with the action of
the heart and lungs. The prostrating effect on the muscular system
of the septic or putrefactive poison was nothing to be compared to
the paralyzing effect of opium. I believe this man would have
survived every interference if the milk gruel had been left out, but
acting as it did, it proved to be the last straw.]

"In regard to the fulminant symptoms at the onset of the disease,
however, it is more likely that even then perforation had already
occurred, and I that the final and fatal exacerbation was in
consequence of adhesions formed in the first period which were
powerless to resist the entrance of organisms producing
inflammation. The pus finally broke through the adhesions, and
produced diffuse peritonitis."