A Note on the Technic of Total Evisceration.

Abstract

For experiments of short duration (6 to 8 hours), total evisceration of a dog may be done successfully by the following simple method, which brings about nearly the same conditions as hepatectomy without the complicated series of operations leading up to the final stage.

Under very light ether anesthesia an incision is made from the xiphoid to a point half way from the umbilicus to the symphysis. The pelvic colon is clamped, ligated and cut, the ligature including enough mesentery to stop the inferior mesentery vessel. The distal end is not inverted. The entire intestinal mass is then delivered and a thin transparent mesentery can be cut, without clamping, to the level of the pancreas, where another set of vessels is met and clamped, the line of cleavage being close to the aorta. The choledochus, hepatic vessels and portal vein are next clamped en masse and the cardiac end of the stomach transfixed and ligated.

The entire mass of viscera can then be rapidly cut loose with one sweep of the knife. A heavy mass ligature is then thrown about the liver pedicle getting all the veins en masse. The three pedicles are ligated and the abdomen closed with a running stitch including all the layers. The procedure, with practice, may be carried out in 8 to 10 minutes, and the animal is left without liver, stomach, intestines, pancreas or spleen. In the few hours of life left, autolytic products of the ligated liver are not absorbed, as its capsule is untouched and the circulation entirely destroyed. The anesthetic is stopped after five minutes of operating, and glucose injections begun at once to counteract the rapidly ensuing hypoglycemia.