104 PATHOLOGY. 



of the blood and tissue owing to tlie advancing decomposition ; 

 but notwithstanding tliis, the fat gave the usual reactions with 

 perosmic acid and other staining materials. 



I am not aware that this disease has ever been observed by 

 any veterinary writer, and it was only in 1874 that Professor 

 Kussmaul first drew attention to it in the Deutsclus Archiv fiir 

 Klinisclie, as causing a remarkable mode of death in diabetes 

 mellitus of the human being ; the fatal symptoms consisting in 

 a peculiar kind of dyspnoea, which after a time was accompanied 

 by and ended in coma. 



In 1879, the late Professor Sanders, and D. J. Hamilton, 

 M.B., Edinburgh, investigated two cases after death from 

 diabetes, and found a condition of the blood similar to that 

 described above. 



Death from lipremia has also been observed in cats- which 

 have suffered from exhaustive diseases, accompanied by great 

 emaciation, but no cases have hitherto been recorded in which 

 this condition of the blood has accompanied obesity of the body 

 generally. 



Patty embolism of the pulmonary artery is a cause of death 

 in some cases of compound fracture of the long bones in man, 

 and is accounted for by the fact that the medulla of the osseous 

 canal gains entrance into the ruptured blood-vessels, and is thus 

 mixed up with the general circulation, becoming arrested in its 

 passage through the pulmonary vessels, and there forming a 

 block to the pulmonary circulation, which finally effectually 

 stops the aeration of the blood, and causes death by apnoea. 



On comparing the fat condition of the body of this sheep to 

 the emaciation of diabetic subjects, one cannot help being struck 

 with the contrast between the two extremes. It is certainly 

 difficult to answer the question, how is the fat produced in the 

 blood of diabetic patients ? But in this sheep the conclusion 

 seems self-evident : that we had an animal which (along with 

 others) had been fed up to such a point that it could no longer 

 either assimilate, utilise, or excrete the highly nutritious matters 

 contained in its food. 



The Shropshire Down breed of sheep are noted for their 

 fattening properties, and in this case we had an example of an 

 animal having been fed beyond the point of perfection. The 

 winter of 1881-2 was a remarkably open one ; grass was plentiful 



