THE MODERN HOUSE DOCTOR. 143 



black, thick blood, semi-coagulated; and often yellow, consisting 

 of fibrinous, albuminous concretions. These productions, large or 

 small, exist sometimes, says M. Girard, in the right cavities, some- 

 times in the left, and sometimes in both right and left at once ; 

 they always occupy the auriculo-ventricular opening, and more or 

 less completely fill it. Such appearances would have escaped 

 observation both in men and animals, had not M. Girard pointed 

 them out in horses in the gastro-enteritis called the epidemic of 

 1825. Do they form during or after life ? The former director 

 of the Alfort school entertained the first hypothesis, and thought 

 that the concretions in question might prove the cause of death, 

 by producing that suffocation which he had observed in horses 

 which died suddenly and in a manner asphyxiated. 



" Supposing it were so, adds M. Girard, we should obtain an 

 easy explanation to the obstruction of the lungs, the engorgement 

 of the liver, the phlogosis of the air tubes, and the presence of 

 frothy mucus within them. According to the same authority, 

 the internal surfaces of the cavities of the heart present vestiges 

 of sub-acute inflammation ; the redness is most remarkable in 

 the tricuspid and mitral valves, and extends into the arterial 

 and venous trunks; though it is not equally perceptible in all 

 the cavities of the heart or within the venous and arterial trunks. 



" In general, little alteration is visible in the brain, though in 

 some subjects the exterior presents marks of inflammation. M. 

 Girard once observed inflammation in the right lobe ; and M. 

 Rainaud speaks of the injection of the veins of the brain, of 

 effusion into the lateral ventricles, of slight yellowish infiltration, 

 and of concretions of the same hue in the choroid plexus. When 

 the urinary apparatus participates in the inflammation, the kid- 

 neys are redder than ordinary, and their tissue is extremely 

 lacerable ; the bladder exhibiting red spots, and the urine being 

 saffron or brick-dust colored. In some instances, the whole of 

 the sub-cutaneous, cellular, and muscular tissue is infiltrated, and 

 its areola} are filled with yellowish fluid — an appearance most 

 remarkable in the breast, scrotum, and sheath, when such parts 

 have proved cedematous during life. 



" Such were the principal signs of disease observed in the 

 iorses that fell victims to the gastro-enteritis of 1825. The 



