CALCULOUS AFFECTION. 
163 
and looking like a skeleton. The penis was then hanging down, 
and the urine, which flowed from it drop by drop, had corroded the 
internal surface of the thighs, legs, and pasterns. 
Being desirous of ascertaining the nature and seat of this disease, 
which appeared to me so serious, I determined, somewhat too late 
perhaps, to examine the urinary organs. After having taken all 
proper precautions, I introduced my right hand into the rectum, 
and first of all ascertained that the bladder occupied its natural 
position, and that it did not contain any foreign body. On passing 
my hand backwards I afterwards perceived that there was a large, 
hard, firm tumour, of an ovoid form, situated at the back of the 
neck of the bladder, occupying the whole upper part of the pubis. 
But what was the nature of this tumour] — and where could be its 
seat ] Such were the questions which naturally presented them- 
selves to my mind, and which I endeavoured to resolve. Having 
ascertained that the tumour was not in the bladder, and not once 
imagining that a stone of such a size could be situated any where 
else but in this viscus, I at once discarded all idea of calculous 
disease. I then remembered that this horse had been operated 
upon for stone, and I conceived that, perhaps, under the influence of 
a bad constitution, some tumour of a scirrhous nature had developed 
itself at the neck of the bladder where the incision had been made. 
Prepossessed with this opinion, and considering it as well founded, 
I sought M. Dominique Barthelemy, who attended this horse 
before, in order to obtain some information on this point. I learned 
that this gentleman had, in his capacity of veterinary surgeon to 
M. Boileau, been frequently called on to treat the horse for slight 
attacks of colic, one of which one day had assumed an alarming 
appearance, and was attended with every symptom of retention of 
urine. After having relieved the animal by means of a catheter of 
Indian rubber, M. Barthelemy examined the bladder through the 
rectum, and perceived the presence of a stone of some considerable 
size in the interior of that viscus. Deeming the operation of 
cutting indispensable, on the following day he consulted with your 
honourable President, M. Barthelemy, senior, who, on examining 
the horse, remarked that a calculus of some size was fixed in the 
canal of the urethra below the ischial contour. An incision made 
on the left side of this canal allowed the calculus to pass out, and 
in less than twenty days the wound had healed, and the animal 
appeared perfectly recovered. 
M. Dominique Barthelemy was in his own mind convinced that 
the calculus, which, according to him, had passed through the neck 
of the bladder during the night, was much larger when he felt it 
in that viscus ; and he was of opinion that it had thrown off some 
incrustation while passing through the neck. I have made a point 
