THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 81 



day she appeared better — that is, the vomiting had ceased. 

 She was then drenched with glauber salts and spearmint, and 

 during the next day received several alkaline injections, and 

 such other treatment as the urgency of the case seemed to 

 require. Notwithstanding this, she died on the third day from 

 my first visit. The owner, in accordance with my request, 

 notified me of the death, and I made an autopsy. The heart, 

 lungs, liver, spleen, panereas, kidneys, stomach, and bowels, all 

 appeared in a healthy state ; they presented, however, evi- 

 dences of debility, in the condensation and pale aspect of their 

 tissues. The onientum-catd was exceedingly dense, scarcely 

 thicker than a piece of writing paper. Tracing the oesopha- 

 gus internally from the mouth to its termination, or base, 

 there were no symptoms of laceration or inflammation ; but in 

 the dilated portion of the same, which is contiguous, and 

 receives food after primary mastication, I found a mass of 

 juvenile cornstalks, about the size of a man's fist, and twice 

 the length of the same — seven inches. This part being con- 

 sidered as the termination of the oesophagus, and commencing 

 link of the stomach, was distended beyond its ordinary capacity 

 and in a high state of gangrene — mortification — and parti- 

 cles of cornstalk were protruding through its disorganized and 

 lacerated tissues. This accounts for the death, but the reader 

 will, probably, want to know something about the cause, and may, 

 possibly, say that the whipstock was the exciting one. This 

 would appear, on first thought, as a rational conclusion ; be- 

 cause many valuable animals, both in this and the mother 

 country {as records show) have been destroyed by lacerating 

 the oesqphagus, with the above, or some such instrument ; and 

 we might reasonably assign the cause of death to the same, and 

 thus terminate this article. But my readers, I opine, desire 

 the truth, and nothing but the truth. I am satisfied that the 

 whipstock, however injurious it may have been in other cases 

 (and it is in most ca^es an objectionable remedy), was inopera- 

 tive in this — that is, so far as the vitality of the animal was 

 concerned. Now for the proof. The seat of the disease 

 proved to be, by careful measurement, fox'ty-three inches from 



