100 
STOMACHIC ABSORPTION. 
vein springing from a considerable branch derived from the 
trunk even of the posterior vena cava. 5 ’* 
Repeated injections, on the other hand, have shown us, in 
the horse also, communications free enough between the azy- 
gos and posterior vena cava, through the first lumbar veins. 
On the 27th October, feeling desirous of establishing a 
parallel between the pneumonia produced by ligature of 
the pylorus, and that taking place during the act of 
digestion, I tied the pylorus in a six years old horse, and bv 
means of oesophagotomy, injected into the stomach cyanine 
of iron and potass dissolved in three pints of water. To 
another horse, thirteen years old, after having given him oats 
mixed with bran, and hay besides, by means of ocsophago- 
tomy, we injected into his stomach the same quantity of the 
same chemical preparation, dissolved as before. 
The first horse soon began to show signs of agitation, and 
a diarrhoea came on, which lasted until death, as had been 
the case with every horse which had been subjected to the 
operation, in better than an hour; some blood was drawn 
from the jugular vein of both these horses, the serum of 
which was saturated with solutions of sulphate of iron, with 
the addition of a few drops of sulphuric acid. There was no 
reaction. After upwards of two hours, the first horse passed 
some thick urine, which was immediately acted on by con- 
tact of sulphate of iron. An hour afterwards he was de- 
stroyed. The fluid contained in the stomach, the urine in 
the kidneys, ureters, and bladder, all afforded evidence of the 
presence of prussiate of potass ; whereas, doubts only were 
suggested regarding the blood of the vena portae, and that 
which was obtained from other parts of the system. The 
fluid contained in the small intestines neither afford any 
traces of the salt, the ligature being too high to admit of any 
passage of fluid out of the stomach. The other horse 
was destroyed the following day ; in him the cyanine of iron 
and potass was detected throughout the intestinal canal and 
in the urine, but nowhere else. 
A similar experiment was made on a Hanoverian horse, 
twelve years old. Being kept without food for twenty-six 
hours, through an aperture made into the oesophagus forty 
grammes of cyanine of iron and potass were injected every two 
hours, commencing an hour after food had been given. Blood 
was drawn from the jugular, the sub-cutaneous thoracic vein, 
the aphthic, and the saphena,for upwardsof twenty-four hours. 
The serum of the different parcels of blood submitted to test, 
never yielded any positive result ; while the urine, which had 
* Traite complet de l’Anatomie des Animaux domestiques. 
