180 REPORT—1840. 
OssErvATION IIi. 
June 22.—Subject, a Donkey about six months old, in good 
health. Phenomena: Results of application of pressure in 
various ways to the ventricles ;—rhythm and manner of motions 
of fundus and apex in systole and diastole ;—motions in the 
arteries and over the valvular orifices ;—action of the sinuses in 
systole of auricles ;—shortening of heart in systole ;—effects 
of wounding an auricle, §c. §c. 
S. 1. Callipers were applied to the ventricles, as if to take 
the diameter of the heart. The legs of the callipers before 
use had been fastened together by an elastic chord of con- 
siderable resisting power. In whichever direction the instru- 
ment so prepared was made to embrace the ventricles, whether 
exactly transversely or obliquely, the uniform result was, that 
the legs of the instrument were separated with force, and re- 
ceded from each other in each systole, and approached each 
other in each diastole with depression of the part of the parietes 
they pressed on; which depression wholly disappeared in the 
systole, giving place to an opposite state of the parts, or toa 
state of convexity and apparent protrusion. 
S. 2. The finger and thumb were then applied to opposite 
sides of the ventricles, and were felt to be abruptly pushed 
outwards in systole, and to approach each other in diastole, if 
acted on even slightly by the flexor muscles, and with marked 
depression of the parietes in diastole, during which no sense 
of active resistance was experienced. 
S. 3. A wooden stethoscope was then placed on the ven- 
tricles, and kept erect by means of a roll of paper large 
enough to give the instrument full freedom of motion; and 
the uniform result was, that wheresoever placed on the ventri- 
cles, the stethoscope was heaved up with a jerk at each systole 
(to the height of half an inch near the fundus), and subsided 
at once in diastole, causing in the parietes a deep depression, 
which was wholly removed by the systole, and succeeded by 
an opposite shape of the surface. 
S. 4. To the eye and hand the fundus appeared to become 
round, hard, and elevated, and to give impulse somewhat 
sooner than the apex, as if the systole was developed earlier 
about the fundus than at the free extremity of the heart. 
S. 5. To the fingers, during the systole of the ventricles, a 
feeling was communicated, as of an undulation in a com- 
pressed fluid, very distinct, and directed from fundus to apex, 
and resembling sensations familiar to physicians in ascites, hy- 
drocele, &c., when properly percussed and manipulated. 
