SCROFULOUS DIATHESIS IN A BULLOCK. 551 
parietes of the heart itself, I could not succeed without injuring 
the muscular structure of the organ. 
Between the tubercular deposit and the base of the heart 
there was the usual quantity of adipose tissue. 
There was no fluid of any kind inside the pericardium. 
I have never seen in any previous dissection the coronary 
arteries so largely developed. 
The scrofulous diathesis is a disease, so far as T am aware, 
that has escaped, in a great measure, the notice of writers on 
cattle pathology ; this may be, doubtless, owing to peculiarities 
of district, &c., as I have never met with it myself but on one 
farm and in one stock ; and though I have sometimes read of a 
complaint called clyers, referring to a diseased state of the 
glands of the neck, yet the manner of description, and the 
method advised for the cure, leave us very much in doubt 
whether the writer, in many instances, understands the true 
nature of the ailment. 
I have seen the glands of the head and neck very much en- 
larged, and in various stages of morbid development, some hard 
in texture, others containing a milky puriform matter, of the 
consistence of thick cream, and of a peculiar faint odour. Not 
above three months since, I was present in a butcher’s shop, 
where a beautiful heifer, high bred, and very fat, of the same 
stock as the bullock above mentioned, was about to be slaugh- 
tered, and which I knew was affected with scrofulous enlarge- 
ments about the head and neck ; and on the butcher taking off 
the anterior extremity, he cut into a large tumour, containing 
about three pints of the cream-like matter just described. 
I have also seen enlargements of the mesenteric glands, but 
never in any one instance observed or heard of the tubercular 
diathesis being developed inside the pericardium, as in the 
above case. And it is the more remarkable, when we reflect to 
what an extent the morbid growths had already proceeded, the 
animal not being much above half grown. The heart itself, at 
the utmost, would not weigh above three pounds, thus leaving 
twenty-five pounds weight of a foreign substance closely at- 
tached to an organ which is the centre of the circulation, and 
whose unimpeded action is deemed essential to the prolongation 
of life. It would appear almost impossible for the heart, situated 
as it was, so to contract upon its contents as to send the blood 
in a normal manner to the various parts of the organism. 
I believe it is a disputed question, whether the matter which 
forms tubercles is organised or not. Hooper, after quoting 
Laennec on this point, says, “Tubercle is thus regarded by 
Laennec as an organised product, which undergoes changes by 
virtue of actions carried on within itself. This opinion, however, 
