206 DISEASES OF THE HEART. 



After death, the heart exhibited signs of endocarditis, 

 and was hypertrophied. The valves, however, were the 

 parts principally diseased. They showed, in great perfec- 

 tion, that kind of disease described by authors on human 

 medicine as condylomatous sarcoma. The membranous 

 substance of the valves was altogether changed into thick- 

 ened wart-like growths, presenting cauliflower or fungus- 

 like edges; resembling very much what one now and then 

 sees in warts with ragged edges growing from the (human) 

 penis, or rather from the prepuce. One of the three semi- 

 lunar valves at the mouth of the aorta presented a bunch 

 of the magnitude of a walnut; the excrescences on the 

 remaining two being of the magnitude of good-sized peas. 

 Upon these two valves the unnatural growths proceeded 

 from the convex or ventricular sides, their concave or aortic 

 surfaces still being, at their attachment, membranous ; but 

 of the valve principally diseased, not any vestige of its 

 original membranous tissue remained. The bicuspid 

 VALVES were in a similar state of disease, but in them the 

 morbid change was in a less advanced stage. They were, 

 however, both of them, more than treble their natural 

 thickness, their under or ventricular surfaces having the 

 tubercular, condylomatous feel; their upper surfaces and 

 their attached parts being to appearance healthy. The 

 TRICUSPID VALVES, arouud their floating borders, were at 

 least four times their ordinary thickness ; and from the 

 ventricular or inferior surface of two of them — from one 

 more than the other — were growing excrescences of the 

 same kind as those before described, of the magnitude of 

 large peas ; their superior (auricular) sides presenting, as in 

 the former case, their normal aspects. The semilunar valves 

 of the pulmonary artery bore no marks of disease. The 

 endocardium exhibited the same red streaks and spots, 

 indicative of inflammation, as had been observed upon the 

 reflex pericardium. The entire case will be found in The 

 Veterinarian, vol. xix, p. 1, et seq. 



