The first successful surgical operation for intussusception in an infant was reported in 1874.1 Prior to this date, infants with intussusception were occasionally treated by introducing air into the rectum by means of a tube attached to a common pair of bellows.In 1864 David Grieg2 of Dundee, Scotland published the first detailed report of the successful treatment by insuffiation of several infants with intussusception. This is how he described his first case.Case I.—M.S.G., a stout, healthy, female child, 6 months old, always enjoyed good health, never having had a day's sickness; never had any food except breast milk; never troubled with diarrhoea or bowel complaint. Was in her usual good health on Monday, 13th October 1862, up to 6 o'clock in the evening, when, without any obvious cause, she suddenly became fretful, kicking with her feet, bending the body backwards, and screaming. In about ten minutes she became very sick and vomited severely. The skin became cold and clammy, the countenance pale, and the lips livid.... She seemed to have great pain in the abdomen, which came on in paroxysms, and to increase in intensity until she vomited, when she would seem relieved a little, or at least so faint and sick as not to scream. When given the breast, she would take it readily; but as the sickness and vomiting, with a paroxysm of pain, immediately came on, she latterly refused it. Immediately when she was seized a spoonful of castor oil was given, and hot fomentations were applied to the abdomen.
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