AIR IN THE HEART. 215 



heart was taken dropped down dead, in emaciated condition, 

 in a dust-cart. 



A case of ossification of the right auricle is reported in 

 the Recueil de Med. Vet. for Sept. 1840. It occurred to 

 M. Barthelemy. The horse, small in stature and weak in 

 appearance, worked in a public carriage, but only for five 

 months, before he was found incapable, though only five 

 years old. He had no cough, though it was found that his 

 respiration and pulse were much quicker than in health, 

 and that the slightest exercise proved^ufficient to put him 

 out of breath ; though even then, the motions of his flanks 

 were but increased in number without being rendered 

 irregular. At length he was sent into infirmary, and died 

 there on the sixth day, with symptoms of pneumonia in 

 both sides. There were found abscesses and vomicae in the 

 lungs, with hepatization and grey tubercle, quite sufficient 

 to account for death. But the heart also was diseased. 

 It was so voluminous as nearly to fill the entire cavity of 

 the pericardium; and its left auricle was ossified, and 

 strongly adherent to the pericardium by white fibrous bands. 

 It was double its natural size, and its ossified walls proved 

 more than one third of an inch in thickness. The auricular 

 septum was sound, and the auriculo-ventricular valves had 

 not a spot of ossification. The ventricles were not sensibly 

 enlarged. 



AIR IN THE HEART. 



Dr. Hope^ received from Dr. Forbes, of Chichester, the 

 following communication: — "I yesterday examined a boy 

 who had died suddenly, after being aftected for years with 

 all the symptoms of extreme dilatation of the heart. I 

 found the organ very large, from dilatation of both ven- 

 tricles, and both were distended ivith air — in all, eight or ten 

 ounces. There was no particular putridity, the boy having 

 been dead only thirty-six hours.^' The Doctor informs us 

 that a similar case is recorded in Simmons' 'London Medical 



» Chapter iv of Dr. Hope's Treatise. 



