392 PEEICAEDITIS. 



" On the 23rd he was very much worse, and seemed to be 

 in some pain, which, however, subsided on a second bleeding, 

 though his appetite never returned. The medicine was 

 persevered in, without the slightest beneficial effect, until 

 the evening of the 26th, when death put an end to his 

 sufferings. 



" Feeling some degree of interest in the case, I rode over 

 on the following day, and made a post-mortem examination. 

 The abdominal viscera were perfectly healthy, but on laying 

 open his chest an immense mass of disease presented itself. 

 The lungs were inflamed in places, not, however, to any 

 extent; but the pericardium was extraordinarily diseased. 

 It was not only much thickened and inflamed, as you will 

 perceive by the specimen sent you, but was also completely 

 enveloped in a thick coat of coagulated lymph-like substance, 

 from which large flakes of the same material were floating 

 loosely in the chest. Having removed the pericardium and 

 its contents apart from the chest, a more minute examination 

 detected a slight opening through the sac, and a corresponding 

 one in the substance of the heart itself, extending about half- 

 way through the wall of the left ventricle, as will be per- 

 ceptible should the specimen be still sufficiently perfect. The 

 membrane of the heart itself was much diseased over its 

 entire surface, and there was also an inordinate quantity of 

 the liquor pericardii. Thinking the case curious, I brought 

 away that portion of heart and sac containing the punctures, 

 and which I trust is now in your possession: had I then 

 thought of sending it to the Association, I should have taken 

 the whole organ. As the animal's skin had been removed 

 before my arrival, I had no opportunity of examining it; but 

 I found a distinct mark, in fact a long-healed cicatrice, on the 

 anterior portion of the left pleura costalis. 



"The conclusion at which I arrived respecting the case 



