268 
RUPTURE OF THE DIAPHRAGM IN A HORSE. 
Believing that what is well meant will be as' kindly received; and 
with one wish, one desire, to see an art to which I am devotedly 
attached flourish and take its true standing in the social com- 
munity, 
I remain, in all sincerity, 
Your well wisher. 
April 12, 1847. 
CASE OF RUPTURE OF THE DIAPHRAGM IN A 
HORSE. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S . , and V.S. 
October 1th, 1846. — A HORSE, ten years of age, and otherwise 
in apparently perfect health, was brought to me on account of hav- 
ing, in the course of the past night, injured one of his fore legs, 
by having, as was supposed, coiled the chain with which he was 
tied up around it. The injury appeared of so trivial a character 
that I simply ordered his leg should be fomented, occasionally, 
after walking exercise, which was directed to be given again in 
the afternoon. 
At six o’clock P.M. accordingly, he was again taken out of his 
stable for exercise ; which, as in the morning, was given by the 
man riding him, and leading in hand by his side another horse. 
He had walked three or four hundred yards without attracting any 
particular attention, when suddenly the man found him falter in his 
step, which was quickly succeeded by reeling in his gait, and ulti- 
mately falling upon his side. The man, although he threw him- 
self off the horse’s back, narrowly escaped having his leg crushed 
against the ground : as it was, the heel of his boot got wrenched 
off in the fall. 
Post-mortem Examination, made the following morning: — It 
was evident that some consummation, either of disease or injury, 
had taken place in his inside to occasion his sudden death, and we 
all felt anxious to learn what it was. Conjecture was just as likely 
to be wrong as right, there being no sufficient grounds to build up 
any guess or theory upon. The cavity of the abdomen was laid 
open by the excision of a large circular flap of the parietes, expos- 
ing the coecum and colon in a perfectly healthy condition. No sooner, 
however, was the great arch of the latter turned out from its repose 
against the diaphragm than the cause of death at once became 
manifest. There was a rent in the diaphragm large enough to ad- 
