THE CHEST. 24fl 



.■^ajs lilr. Cartwriglit, in tLc foiirtli A-olume of the r.listracts of the Veteriiinry 

 Medical Association, ' wlien the vein is in an nlcei-ative state I have laid 

 it open, and applied caustic dressing, and it has healed up. I have lately 

 had a case in which five or six abscesses had formed above the original 

 wonnd, and the two superior ones burst through the parotid gland, tho 

 extent of the ulceration being evident in the quantity of saliva that flowed 

 through each orifice.' 



But another very serious result of an inflamed vein is one but rarely 

 noticed, and to which too little attention has been paid, but which when 

 i t does occur is of a sufficiently alarming character ; this is secondary 

 lia3morrhage — the ulcerative process has extended to the vein itself, and a 

 most profuse bleeding ensues. Pressure by any means, with considerable 

 elevation of the head, is the only immediate check, until the arrival of the 

 veterinary surgeon, when the application of a ligature round the vein aZ^O'i^e 

 the orifice constitutes the permanent cure. In four cases, in our countiy 

 practice, this operation perfectly succeeded. 



The owner of the horse will find it his interest to apply to a veterinary 

 practitioner as soon as a case of inflamed vein occurs. 



Should the vein be destroyed, the horse will not be irreparably injured, 

 and perhaps, at no great distance of time, scarcely injured at all ; for nature 

 is ingenious in making provision to carry on the crrculation of the blood. 

 All the vessels conve;y-ing the blood from the heart to the different parts of 

 the frame, or bringing it back again to the heart, communicate with each 

 other by so many channels, and in such various ways, that it is impossible 

 by the closure or loss of any one of them long materially to impede the 

 flow of the vital current. If the jugular is destroyed, the blood will circulate 

 through other vessels almost as freely as before ; but the horse could not 

 be considered as sound, for he might not be equal to the whole of the work 

 requii'ed of him. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE CHEST. 



T}[E CHEST, in the horizontal position in which it is placed in the cut, is 

 of a somewhat oval figure, ^vith its extremities truncated. The spine is its 

 roof; the sternum, or breast, its floor; the ribs, its sides; the trachea, 

 cesophagus, and great blood-vessels passing through its anterior extremity 

 and the diaphragm, being its posterior. It is contracbed in front, broad and 

 deep towards the central boundary, and again contracted posteriorly. It 

 encloses the heai-t and the lungs, the origin of the arterial, and the 

 termination of the venous trunks and the collected vessels of the absorbents. 

 The windpipe penetrates into it, and the cesophagus traverses its whole 

 extent. 



A cavity whose contents are thus important should be secxTrely defended. 

 The roof is not composed of one unyielding prolongation of bone, which 

 might possibly have been strong enough, yet would have subjected it to a 

 thousand rude and dangerous shocks ; but there is a curiously-contrived 

 series of bones, knit together by strong ligaments and dense fibro- 

 cartilaginous substance, forming so many joints, each possessed but of Httle 

 individual motion, but the whole united and constituting a column of such 

 exquisitely-contrived flexibility and streng-fii, that all concussion is avoided, 

 and no external violence or weight can injure that which it protects. It is 

 supported chiefly by the anterior extremities, and beautiful are the 



e2 



