AN ACCOUNT OF VARIOUS FILAIlljE. 
217 
animal, and does not quit the fluid at any season of the year ; and, 
so far as all present researches lead us to believe, it is not subject 
to those migrations, or any analogous to them, which pertain to 
filaria? inhabiting the blood of certain cold-blooded animals. 
The following observation serves to confirm the facts we have 
now been stating: — 
A large, vigorous, young mastiff, was submitted, by M. Bouley, 
for a period of twenty-three days, to a diet composed solely of 
gelatine. On the twenty- third day the animal died, and on a post- 
mortem examination six worms, varying in length from six to ten 
centimetres, and about the size of a thread, were found in the ven- 
tricles of the heart at the surface of it and among the blood coagu- 
lated in its cavities. The blood of this animal contained throughout 
the body a great quantity of these same worms, but such as were 
only discernible with a microscope. In some instances as many as 
from ten to fifteen might be counted in one drop of blood ; and it 
may be estimated that, when alive, the blood of this animal must 
have contained nearly 100,000 worms. 
The most minute inspection of the solids did not enable us to 
discover a single worm The size of the larger hematozoaires en- 
abled us to investigate their internal structure, and recognise the 
distinction between the sexes, and also to state positively that the 
females were ovo-vivipares. 
The Professor of Pathology has discovered, during the last few 
years, a particular kind of lameness in the horse, caused by much 
contraction of the aponeurosis of the ilio aponeurotic muscle, or 
fascia lata. This claudication is announced by the difficulty ex- 
perienced by the animal in communicating motion to the superior 
articulations of the limb, and especially by a tension of the aponeu- 
rose of the muscle, which forms a hard extended cord between the 
haunches and the rotula while the limb rests on the ground. 
Plorses that are affected with this contraction in one limb only 
limp at first, and thirty or forty days afterwards are scarcely capa- 
ble of work ; and if the contraction exists in two legs at once, 
they are sometimes incapable of going at all. After having vainly 
attempted to cure this lameness by irritating frictions and by re- 
peated firing, it was resolved to cut the contracted aponeurose by 
passing a long bistoury, having a straight blade with a button at the 
end, under the skin. 
In four horses this operation has been attended with perfect 
success. Nevertheless, M. Delafond deems it necessary to state 
most explicitly, that this operation ought only to be attempted in 
cases of actual contraction of the aponeurosis, and not in those so 
often met with, and very similar ones, arising from entire or partial 
displacement of the rotula. Y. 
