320 
MELANOSIS. 
condition. The pulse at the submaxillary artery was feeble, 
slow, and intermitting. Upon my auscultating the chest, 
there appeared, from the sound of the heart, to be a want of 
power in it to propel the blood onwards ; and from the general 
symptoms I concluded that this organ was affected with a 
chronic and incurable disease, therefore, I recommended that 
the horse should be destroyed. 
On a post-mortem examination, I found the stomach and 
bowels healthy ; the kidneys and the bladder were also normal. 
The lungs, however, were small, and appeared to be com- 
pressed. The heart and spleen were extensively diseased. 
[Examination of the heart and spleen . — The pericardial sac 
had undergone no change on its external surface, but its 
interior was studded with fibrinous deposits, varying in size 
from the head of a pin to that of a filbert. The external part 
of the heart was similarly affected. The ventricular sub- 
stance of the organ was unchanged, but the auriculo-ven- 
tricular valves on both sides were much thickened, as were 
also the aortic semilunar valves, leading to imperfect closure 
of these several openings. The wall of the right auricle con- 
tained a large amount of cartilage, and at its anterior part it 
was completely ossified. 
The spleen was rather larger than natural. Its peritoneal 
reflexion was thickened, and was also remarkably white in 
colour. The general surface of the organ was studded with 
tumours, and these extended more or less deeply into its 
substance. They were apparently produced by a deposition 
of fibrin into the trabeculae. The tumours varied in size 
from a pea to a walnut, and were very dense in structure. 
On section, the smallest of them were found to be of a white 
colour throughout, but the largest were intersected with 
reddish lines irregularly disposed, giving to some parts of the 
cut surface an appearance very like that of a section of a 
nutmeg, and to other portions a more granular-like condition.] 
CASE OF MELANOSIS FOLLOWED BY ASCITES. 
By the Same. 
On Sunday evening, April 27th, 1 was requested to see an 
ed gray cab-mare, said to be dangerously ill. The history 
I received was that she had been ailing for some time past, 
and had lately been losing her condition, but that until the 
