TRACHEAL POLYPI. 387 
but ere this could be dofie the horse fell and died im- 
mediately. 
Post-mortem . — This was made in a few minutes after death, 
and was commenced at the larynx. All the muscles of the 
latter were found in a state of atrophy — the crico-aryte- 
noideus posticus muscles especially, having suffered from 
fatty degeneration, causing the cartilages they ought to main- 
tain in a horizontal direction to fall across the opening of the 
larynx in an oblique line. 
On opening the trachea — which was filled with bloody 
froth — and exposing its internal surface down to the part 
where the external thickening had been discovered, two 
polypi were found growing from the anterior wall of the tube, 
and of such a size that when the cylinder w T as closed, as in a 
natural state, the little finger could scarcely be passed 
through the opening left by them. They were of a spongy 
texture, and of a dark-red colour, and around their pedicles, 
which were very short, the mucous membrane was very much 
hypertrophied, and injected with venous and arterial rami- 
fications, all converging towards the roots of the tumours. 
The external enlargement was due to an increase, partly 
ossific, in the fibro-cartilaginous rings and in the textures 
immediately surrounding these parts. The lungs were highly 
congested, and the bronchi filled with extravasated blood 
from some ruptured vessels in the lungs, and which had, no 
doubt, been the cause of death. 
The only other observation made was the fatty state of 
several of the organs contained in the abdomen and thorax. 
Of these the liver and the heart were remarkably so, probably 
from the non-elimination, or incomplete combustion, of the 
carbonaceous constituents of the food. 
I think it extremely probable that an injury to the trachea, 
causing a certain amount of inflammation in its mucous and 
sub-mucous textures, was the cause which led to the formation 
of the polypi found there after death ; and it is very likely 
that, at the time of its occurrence, it was mistaken for pneu- 
monia, and thus the only chance of treating and subduing 
this inflammation was lost. Death would have been caused 
in a very short time, even had the horse never been moved 
out of the stable, as the fatal impediment to that important 
function, breathing, was daily increasing ; but the sudden 
exertion, and the urgent demand for a larger quantity of air 
than was usually required, brought about another form of 
dissolution different to the one that w T ould have happened had 
he been kept in a state of quietude. 
