Definition of "hernia" []

• The protrusion of an organ or other bodily structure through the wall that normally contains it; a rupture. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "DESCRIPTION: Although the term hernia applies to any protrusion of an organ outside the cavity that normally contains it, the usual meaning is an abnormal protrusion of intestines through an opening in the abdominal cavity."
• "Accordingly, in the pathology of Gilbert, the term hernia is applied to hydrocele, orchitis and other diseases of the testicle, and not, as with us to protrusions of the viscera through the walls of their cavities."
• "The best known members of this small group are the openings through the abdominal wall, which, originally placed at the strongest and safest position in the quadrupedal attitude, are now, in the erect attitude, at the weakest and most dangerous, and furnish opportunity for those serious and sometimes fatal escapes of portions of the intestines which we call hernia; the tonsils; and our friend the _appendix vermiformis_."