RUPTURE OF THE SPLEEN. 455 



small doses, such as half a scruple of calomel to a drachm of 

 antimony, twice a day for two or three weeks, then clear all 

 off by a common purge. 



OSSIFICATION OP THE SPLEEN. 



The late Mr. Henderson, V.S., Park-lane, London, had in 

 - his possession a fine specimen of the Ossification of the 

 Spleen. An abscess, about the size of an apple, whose parietes 

 were found to be osseous, had formed within the gland, next the 

 stomach, midway between its base and apex, from which was 

 liberated, after death, a coffee-coloured purulent fluid. The 

 horse from whom it was taken was a subject much wasted in 

 condition, casually brought to the slaughter-house. 



RUPTURE OF THE SPLEEN. 



From year to year, recorded cases of this lesion, occasion- 

 ally fall in upon us : — 



In the year 1812 I was called to a horse, then loose in 

 straw-yard, about seven o'clock p.m., in consequence of his 

 being " griped.^' I had him instantly removed into a stable, 

 and administered two ounces of oil of turpentine. As he 

 appeared relieved, nothing more was done that evening. The 

 following morning, he experienced a relapse of the same 

 symptoms in a more violent degree, of which he died about 

 ten o'clock a.m. Shortly afterwards the body was opened. 

 The first appearance which attracted notice was, that the guts 

 were stained here and there with blood ; and they were no 

 sooner removed than from ten to twelve quarts of that fluid, 

 partly congealed, were found effused into the belly. At first, 

 I suspected this hemorrhage to have been caused by the 

 bursting of some important blood-vessel ; but further exami- 

 nation shewed the spleen to have been ruptured to the extent 

 of about four inches, along its convex border, where it is 

 opposed to the false ribs. While I was inspecting this 

 wound in the spleen, which was now filled with a coagulum, 

 I was amazed at the prodigious distension of the stomach 

 with air — indeed, it occupied so much of the surrounding 



