LABORIOUS AND DIFFICULT PARTURITION,, 203 
former disease ever having existed. Pleura free from adhe- 
sion, and any tendency thereto. Heart rather large, but 
perfectly healthy. Diaphragm intact and healthy. 
Abdominal cavity . — The stomach contained a moderate 
quantity of well-assimilated food, and was healthy; the in- 
testines generally, and their contents, the same ; but the odour 
of the aether neutralised the ordinary fetor attendant on 
opening that cavity, to that extent that made it anything but 
disagreeable. Liver and spleen particularly healthy ; kidneys 
the same. 
The structure of the bladder healthy, but it contained 
about a quart of thick glutinous matter, of a brownish colour, 
so dense as to render its transmission through the orifice of 
the catheter almost impossible. 
The entire spinal column was separated from the rest of 
the body and deprived of the adjacent muscles, and examined 
carefully externally; but no displacement or other irregularity 
could be detected. The spinal canal was not opened, as I had 
neither the implements, time, nor assistance, to complete so 
tedious an examination as such would have been, and I 
conceive that such labour would not have thrown any further 
light on the subject; my opinion being that it was a pure 
case of prostration or collapse, or shock to the nervous system, 
accompanied with a general depression of the powers and 
actions of life : recovery or death taking place in proportion 
to the powers, period, and general state of the animal at the 
time the shock was received. 
Cahir Barracks, Tipperary ; 
March , 1854. 
EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF LABORIOUS AND 
DIFFICULT PARTURITION. 
By M. Younghusband, V.S., Greystoke, Cumberland. 
The season of the year is again returning when cases of 
difficult parturition will be met with, and minor practitioners, 
as well as those of the veterinarian profession, no doubt, will 
be called upon to lend a helping hand. From this inference, 
permit me to relate a case of the most difficult, yet most for- 
tunate, of manual extractions of the foetus in cows, that I 
ever remember to have met with. It is not from the singu- 
larity of the case that I record it, as many such, no doubt, 
will have occurred in a general cattle practice, — but from the 
