INTRA-ABDOMINAL APOPLEXY

Abstract

This report will describe in detail only 1 case. However, since the pathologic process involved has been recorded in the literature only rarely, 12 previously reported cases will be tabulated and brief allusion made to them. In referring to intra-abdominal apoplexy, the subject of this report, Graham commented: This is probably a much more important matter than would seem to be the case from the small amount of discussion which it has received in the literature. Of interest also in this connection is the similarity of the symptoms produced by retroperitoneal hemorrhage to those of an acute surgical intra-abdominal lesion, a point which has been emphasized by Warren H. Cole. Thompson and Dunphy stated: Intra-abdominal apoplexy is the spontaneous rupture of an arterio-sclerotic artery of one of the abdominal viscera. In this region it is the counterpart of cerebral hemorrhage, but, whereas the latter condition is common, intra-abdominal apoplexy is