4 
DISEASE OF THE HEART OF A HORSE. 
Post-mortem Account. 
October *l§th . — The lungs were unusually pale, contained very 
little blood, and were in situ, in a measure concealed from our 
view, as well in a degree compressed, by the extraordinary bulki- 
ness of the pericardium and its contents. On slitting open the 
pericardiac cavity, the heart, which seemed quite to fill it, at once 
burst forth, evidently greatly augmented in volume. About a 
couple of ounces of fluid of the ordinary character lodged at the 
bottom. 
The Heart, stripped of its adherent membrane, and washed of 
its blood, weighed 9ffe. 11 oz. : the ordinary weight of a heart 
being — of a horse at her age — commonly, something less than 
7 ifc. Red lines and spots, demonstrative of inflammation, were 
everywhere visible upon the heart’s surface, but disappeared the 
moment its membranous tunic was dissected off, shewing that the 
substance of the heart had not partaken — or only in a slight or se- 
condary degree — -of the inflammatory action ; and what rendered 
the existence of inflammation still more marked was, the detection, 
in two or three places, of infiltrations of sero-albuminous effusion 
between the layers of this tunic. The muscular substance of 
the heart was quite free from any signs of inflammation. Both 
the right auricle and ventricle shewed increased thickness of their 
walls, and their cavities, that of the latter in particular, as well as 
the auriculo- ventricular opening, were palpably dilated. The left 
auricle and ventricle was also in a state of dilatation, but without 
any material increase of their substance. 
The Valves were the parts especially diseased, and those 
most altered were the semilunar valves at the mouth of the aorta. 
They shewed in great perfection that kind of disease described by 
authors on human medicine as condylomatous sarcoma. The 
membranous substance of the valves was altogether changed into 
thick wart-like growths, presenting cauliflower or fungus-like 
edges, resembling very much what one now and then sees in warts 
with ragged edges, growing from the penis, and occasionally from 
the skin. One of the three semilunar valves presented a bunch 
of the magnitude of a walnut ; the excrescences of the other two 
were about as large as good-sized peas. Of these two valves 
the unnatural growths proceeded from the convex or ventricular 
sides, their concave or aortic surfaces still being at their attach- 
ments membranous ; whereas, of the valve most diseased not a 
vestige of membrane remained. The BICUSPID VALVES were in 
a similar state of disease ; but in them it was in a less advanced 
stage. They were both more than treble their natural thickness, 
