196 



SECTION VIII. 



DISEASES OF THE HEART, PERICARDIUM, AND 

 GREAT BLOOD-VESSELS. 



General Observations on the Action of the Heart. 



PERICARDITIS. 



HYDROPS PERICARDII. 



RUPTURE OF THE PERICARDIUM 



CARDITIS. 



ENDOCARDITIS. 



DISEASE OF THE VALVES. 



ENLARGEMENT OF THE HEART. 



HYPERTROPHY. 



DILATATION. 



OSSIFICATION OF THE HEART. 

 AIR IN THE HEART. 

 RUPTURE OF THE HEART. 

 POLYPUS OF THE HEART. 

 TUMOUR OF THE HEART. 

 ANEURISM OF THE AORTA. 

 ANEURISM OF THE ILIAC ARTERY 

 ANEURISM OF THE RENAL AR- 

 TERY. 



The class of diseases we are now about to consider may 

 be regarded as tlie least advanced of any of veterinary 

 medicine,- — a circumstance not to be ascribed so much to 

 their comparative rarity as to their existing undiscovered, 

 or rather, being confounded during life with other diseases, 

 and in particular with pulmonary affections, with which 

 they will be found in practice often to be combined. 

 Indeed, it is only within the present century that even 

 surgeons have been able to boast of much knowledge in 

 this branch of nosology. Antecedent to the time of 

 Laennec, cardiac disease in man was but seldom detected — 

 if discovered at all — until that stage of the malady was 

 passed when remedy might or could have proved effectual : 

 to auscultation it is that surgeons stand principally indebted 

 for enabling them to make out disease of the heart, 

 especially in its primary and incipient form ; and to the 

 same influential auxiliary must veterinary surgeons have 

 recourse if they would aspire to anything approaching the 

 same perfection of art.^ In our own days, as authors who 



^ "In heart disease, although we dare not speak with certainty without the aid 

 of auscultation, a tolerably accurate diagnosis may nevertheless he made from 

 the careful investigation of symptoms." — Todd on * Diagnosis,^ Lancet, Oct. 29 

 1842. 



