INTESTINAL CONCRETIONS IN MILLERS* HORSES. 133 
with ; but none of them can be correctly said to be made up 
of fragments of stones, or of dirt, or grit from the mill-stones ; 
they are not, in other words, artificial conglomerate. These 
substances may occasionally constitute the nuclei, in common 
with nails, pins, &c. ; and sometimes they may become acci- 
dentally incorporated in what is vulgarly called a “ dung- 
ball although more commonly they are passed out with 
the faeces ; or should they accumulate, they often become the 
cause of much irritation, which is followed by inflammation, 
and even death. 
I feel I need not further particularise ; indeed, by doing so 
I shall encroach too much on your valuable space. It will 
now be understood to what kind of concretion I allude ; and, 
therefore, it only remains for me to give a history of the cases 
in which those calculi I have forwarded to you, Messrs. 
Editors, for acceptance, occurred. I have numbered them 
1,2, and 3, for the better understanding of my description. 
The calculus marked No. 1, was taken from a horse that 
died not very long since. He was fourteen years old, and 
had been in the possession of a miller of this town nine years. 
It is a common custom with him to turn his horses out to 
grass every spring ; and after two years this horse was so 
turned out, when he was observed to void a calculus, and he 
continued to do so every succeeding spring, except the last. 
(Calculus No. 2, is the last he passed.) He was frequently 
attacked with colic, beyond which he might be said to be a 
healthy horse. The attack of which he died took place last 
autumn. He was ill for three days, during which period he 
showed no acute inflammatory symptoms, but there was 
evinced a kind of dull pain, intermittent, and not so severe as 
spasms. There was a cessation of the action of the bowels all the 
time of his illness. I w T as quite satisfied he was suffering from 
a calculus, and that it produced a mechanical obstruction. 
There was much fetor from his mouth ; he voided his urine 
freely, and he continued to stand up till he suddenly dropped 
down and died instantly. 
The large intestines were perceived to be inflamed, but not 
anything like to such an extent as I have seen them in an 
acute inflammatory attack. I found no sacculus in them. 
The calculus was found fixed in a flexion of the colon. 
Calculus No. 3, is one that was passed about two months 
ago, from a horse, the property of another miller in this 
neighbourhood, after a dose of physic had been administered 
to him. It was accompanied with little or no inconvenience. 
I shall watch this horse. 
I have by me a calculus weighing eighteen pounds, taken 
