If the injury is unaccompanied by lesion of the abdominal or thoracic viscera, the prognosis is not so unfavorable as might be supposed.
Unless the laceration is extremely small, protrusion of the stomach or some other viscera into the thoracic cavity will almost invariably result, constituting the condition known as internal or diaphragmatic hernia.

Pare relates the case of a Captain who was shot through the fleshy portion of the diaphragm, and though the wound was apparently healed, the patient complained of a colicky pain.

Eight months afterward the patient died in a violent paroxysm of this pain.

At the postmortem by Guillemeau, a man of great eminence and a pupil of Pare, a part of the colon was found in the thorax, having passed through a wound in the diaphragm.

Gooch saw a similar case, but no history of the injury could be obtained.