RUPTURE OF THE LIVER HEPATIRRHCEA. 449 



more cheerful. Soon afterwards,, however, while doing some- 

 thing up-stairs^ over the stable, the groom heard him fall, and 

 in a very few minutes after, he breathed his last. 



In this case, the horse survived forty-eight hours after his 

 attack. 



The IMMEDIATE Cause OF THE KuPTURE appears to beeither 

 excessive distension, or some sudden effort of respiration or 

 bodily exertion, or some injury. In a case which happened 

 in my own Kegiment, the troop-horse had been standing for 

 thirty hours, unmoved, in his stall. He refused his food, 

 for the first time, one Sunday at noon ; at four o^ clock, 

 p.m., he was perceived to rock about in his stall, as though 

 every moment he would fall ; the farrier-major was imme- 

 diately sent for, and bled him, and while his blood was 

 flowing he fell and died. His belly contained twenty quarts 

 of black viscid blood. His liver was rent across its concave 

 or posterior part ; and, with the exception of the breach, 

 w^as everywhere clay-coloured and highly lacerable. In this 

 case, distension of the bowels at the time that some effort 

 was made in the breathing, appears to have occasioned the 

 rupture of the fragile liver. The same may happen through 

 bodily exertion. Mr. Brown, of Melton Mowbray, was sent 

 for in a hurry to attend the ' Old Queen/ a famous huntress. 

 Two days antecedent to her ailment she had gone through 

 a good run ; having four months previously experienced 

 hepatitis. A few minutes after Mr. Brown^s arrival she 

 died. The liver was found clay-coloured and disorganized, 

 and *' its thin parts brittle.^^ A kick, or blow of any kind, 

 may occasion it. M. Millot, V.S., Yitteaux, was sent for to 

 a horse who had symptoms of colic, but who — from being 

 pressed and tapped on one flank while the other was sup- 

 ported, giving out sounds of the presence of fluid — M. 

 Millot thought had peritonitis. In twelve hours he died. 

 The belly contained two gallons of black blood, mostly 

 coagulated. A rupture, with irregular and fringed borders, two 

 inches long, ran across the left part of the anterior surface 

 of the liver. The horse, it came out afterwards, had been the 

 dav before several times kicked upon the chest by other horses, 

 n. 29 



