FATTY DEGENERATION OF THE HEART. 373 



the ventricle. All that Mr Henderson knows about the case 

 is, that the horse from which the heart was taken dropped 

 down dead, in an emaciated condition, in a dust-cart. 



" A case of ossification of the right auricle is reported in the 

 Recueil de N6d. Vet. for Sept. 1840. It occurred to Mr 

 Barthelemy. The horse, small in stature and weak in ap- 

 pearance, worked in a public carriage, but only for five 

 months, before he was found incapable, though only five 

 years old. He had no cough, though it was found that his 

 respiration and pulse were much quicker than in health, and 

 that the slightest exercise proved sufficient to put him out of 

 breath ; though even then the motions of his flanks were but 

 increased in number, without being rendered irregular. At 

 length he was sent into the infirmary, and died there on the 

 sixth day, with symptoms of pneumonia in both sides. There 

 were found abscesses and vomicae in the lungs, with hepatiza- 

 tion and grey tubercle, quite sufficient to account for death. 

 But the heart also was diseased. It was so voluminous as 

 nearly to fill the entire cavity of the pericardium; and its 

 left auricle was ossified, and strongly adherent to the peri- 

 cardium by white fibrous bands. It was double its natural 

 size, and its ossified walls proved more than one-third of an 

 inch in thickness. The auricular septum was sound, and the 

 auriculo-ventricular valves had not a spot of ossification. 

 The ventricles were not sensibly enlarged." 



FATTY DEGENERATION OF THE HEART. 

 This disease, so common in the human subject, is not fre- 

 quently seen in the lower animals. In a state of obesity the 

 heart of oxen especially is surrounded with large masses of 

 fat, which penetrate its structure to a certain extent. But, in 

 addition to fatty tissue, deposited around the heart, the mus- 

 cular structure gives way, and fibres are observed broken up 



