32 PROF. OWEN ON THE ANATOMY OF THE INDIAN RHINOCEROS. 



of these had wounded the left lung, and the inflammation, which had caused extensive 

 adhesion of the back part of the lung to the pleura costalis, had also extended into the 

 pulmonary substance, and along the bronchial tubes into the trachea. The surface of 

 the part of the left lung near the wound was extensively emphysematous ; and the in- 

 flamed bronchial tubes were loaded with bloody frothy serum and mucus. The supposed 

 attempts at vomiting were doubtless efforts to disembarrass the windpipe of the successive 

 accumulations of this fluid ; and the death of the animal is to be ascribed to the injury 

 and disease of the left lung consequent on the fracture. 



The other morbid appearances were of minor moment : a portion of the right lung 

 was the seat of Hydatids, of the genus Echinococcus. The parent cysts were of various 

 sizes from the diameter of two inches to that of half an inch ; two or three being suc- 

 cessively included in one another. The uncinated vermicules floating freely in the fluid 

 of the parent cysts were roooth of an inch in diameter, and in countless numbers. 

 They will be more particularly described by Mr. Quekett in the Appendix to this paper ; 

 in which also will be given the particulars of the morbid state of the gastric follicles in 

 the digesting portion of the stomach, as observed by the microscope : to this state may 

 be attributed the failure of appetite which first drew attention to the declining health of 

 this rare and valuable quadruped. 



The calcareous matter which was discovered in the gastric follicles would probably 

 have laid the basis of a gastric or intestinal calculus, if the animal had lived ; but the 

 apparently healthily digested condition of a considerable proportion of the contents of 

 the stomach showed that the state of the secreting apparatus could only be remotely 

 connected with the last fatal symptoms. The liver was less firm than usual ; but this 

 might be due to the rapidity with which the large pachyderms pass into a state of 

 chemical decomposition after death. There is a striking difference in that respect 

 in different mammalia ; the Ruminants resist the decomposing forces longer than the 

 Pachyderms, as I have experienced in dissecting the Giraffe and the Aurochs ; and 

 the resistance is more remarkable in some other orders. On dissecting the two-toed 

 Sloth in moderately warm weather, I was surprised at the length of time in which it 

 kept sweet. Martin, in his ' History of the British Colonies,' observes of the Sea Cow 

 (Manatus americanus) , "Its flesh is white and delicate, resembling veal in appearance 

 and taste, and it will keep good several weeks, even in the hot climate of which it is a 

 native, when other meat will not resist putrefaction for as many days." The Elephant 

 and the Tapir which 1 have dissected at the Society's Gardens rapidly passed, like the 

 Rhinoceros, into an offensive state of decomposition. 



The bodies of the .5th, 6th and 7th dorsal vertebrae were anchylosed together along 

 their under part, from which an exostosis of apparently old growth projected into the 

 base of the mediastinum, forming there an obtuse rounded tumour of about two inches 

 vertical thickness and twelve inches in circumference. The neural arches and spines of 

 these vertebree showed no fracture or disease, and as there had not been any symptom 



