866 ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
the author, I have always found that rolling the patient either 
in the direction of the torsion, or the reverse, as recommended 
by M. Bouley, led to delivery taking place without difficulty, 
and I have had no inconsiderable number of cases. 
Case 1st . — On the 27th of April last I was sent for at two 
p.m. to attend a cow, two years and six months old, of Dutch 
breed. I was informed by the messenger that the cow was 
at term, and had shown some symptoms of parturition on the 
previous evening — in other words some pains — but at long 
intervals. Since midnight she had made violent expulsive 
efforts. On introducing his hand into the passage had, to 
his great surprise, found it hermetically closed. On my 
arrival I found the animal lying on her right side, with the 
back against a large flagstone which served as a partition in the 
shed. Her legs were extended, and the feet were pressing 
against the wall of the opposite side. She was making extraor- 
dinary expulsiveefforts; thebody was coveredwith perspiration. 
I learned also from the attendants that the animal was unable 
to stand up long, that she mostly remained down in the posi- 
tion indicated, and that the waters had not come away. 
After having made her get up, I found that the vagina was 
strangely twisted, and that the superior parts of it, with the 
terminal portion of the rectum, were drawn inwards — a 
symptom which I deem pathognomonic of twisting of the 
body of the uterus. Thus I did not hesitate to declare to 
the proprietor that I had to deal with a case of torsion, of which 
diagnosis I soon acquired the certainty on introducing my hand 
into the vagina. I had scarcely reached the middle of the pas- 
sage before I met with an obstacle formed by a multiplicity of 
folds of the organ arranged in spiral manner and having a 
funnel shape, of which the cup was formed by the posterior end. 
This configuration is easily explained by the traction of the 
gravid uterus in an anterior direction, by which the vagina 
becomes twisted in the middle and not in the least towards 
the vulva. Finding that I had before me a case of complete 
torsion, I did not hesitate to cast the animal (in the shed, 
which was very spacious) on her left side, the disposition of 
the folds indicating that the torsion was from right to left. 
Having rolled the patient completely over, I introduced the 
hand, and found that I could reach beyond the obstruction 
by following a passage in the form of a corkscrew. A second 
turn-over of the patient proved, on the reintroduction of the 
hand, that the passage was completely free, and that there 
were no more folds. I then thought that parturition would 
be performed without difficulty, as had been the case each 
time I had had to deal with similar accidents ; but my sur- 
