CONTRIBUTIONS TO ZOOLOGICAL PATHOLOGY. 
27 
feet four inches, and from the top of the withers to the ground 
about three feet six inches. He was in most excellent condition ; 
the surface of the body was loaded with fat to a considerable 
thickness, and for development of muscle, nothing could excel 
its beauty, strength, and symmetry. On removing the viscera 
of the thorax the immediate cause of death was seen. Both lungs 
were extensively diseased. One was almost solidified by hepatiza- 
tion, while the other was run through with small abscesses in every 
direction. The viscera of the abdomen and pelvis were perfectly 
healthy. 
On examining the mouth, the laniary teeth were very much 
destroyed, especially those in the lower jaw. This had evidently 
been effected by means of strong mechanical force, applied from 
without ; the tips of the teeth were all chiselled off from without 
inwards, and several of them, especially the left inferior laniary, 
shewed that they had been recently chipped down, a large portion 
of the latter tooth having been fractured down to the bone in the 
alveolar socket, was still kept dangling in its place by the adherent 
gum. The periosteum covering the facial bones, from the orbit to 
the point of the muzzle, was much thickened and very irregular 
on its surface ; and on looking into the nose the same nodulated 
appearance was also found on the Schneiderian membrane lining 
its external walls. These roughened and nodulated appearances 
were found to depend on an extensive effusion of osseous paste on 
the surface of these bones, the outer layer of which was soft and 
capable of being cut into with a knife. The entire skeleton was 
afterwards subjected to careful maceration, and especially the skull, 
when, after a careful removal of the soft parts, a most extraordinary 
appearance was seen in connexion with the entire osseous struc- 
ture, especially the larger and more exposed bones of the skeleton. 
Though the animal was aged, the bones had all the spongy ap- 
pearance of the youthful state. The surfaces of the long and flat 
bones were very rough ; their fibres opened out ; they appeared to 
have been more than usually vascular, and, in structure, were much 
softer and more cartilaginous than I have ever found them. It is 
well known that in animals which have been domesticated from 
a state of nature, and have been confined to a uniform though 
artificial regimen and mode of life, the osseous system, above all 
others, shews the influence of this change, by becoming softened, 
and afterwards bent and twisted, in consequence thereof. Indeed, 
some of the best marked instances of “ mollitis osseum” that I 
have seen have occurred in animals under the above-mentioned 
circumstances, and especially in the monkey tribe. That part of 
the appearances seen in the present instance did depend on the 
artificial mode of life which the animal maintained, cannot be 
