ULCERATION OF THE SMALL INTESTINES. 
139 
freely. The owner further suggested that I should blister 
the sides. I was glad the ordinary blister gave me an easy 
excuse to decline doing so, seeing how much had already 
been done, for I was fearful, if full sensation of the skin, &c., 
returned, that nature might resent my interference with so 
large a surface of the body. To the master’s inquiry as to 
what was the matter? I replied that I could see nothing be- 
yond congestion, although the state of the visible mucous 
membranes was not in accordance with such a condition of 
the vascular system. Still all that had been done did not 
seem to produce the slightest change. The mustard and the 
stimulants appeared to be without effect, the hot fomen- 
tations had not increased the temperature of the legs, and the 
draughts were swallowed as if they had been so much water. 
I however left another draught, and promised to call early 
on the following morning. 
Jan. 19th. — I was at Chelsea by nine o’clock. On my 
arrival I ascertained that the horse had died at ten the pre- 
vious night. An hour before the time last mentioned, the 
owner, in opposition to my opinion, had bled, or rather en- 
deavoured to bleed the animal, when about a pint of thick 
treacle-like fluid was abstracted, after which the horse fell to 
rise no more. 
I proceeded to examine the body at once. Upon removing 
the skin there were indications of intense congestion, the 
areolar tissue being of a bright red colour. On cutting 
through the walls of the abdomen a quantity of fluid of a 
reddish-brown colour escaped, and with it were mingled floc- 
culi of lymph, and a small portion of ingesta. The liquid 
very much resembled that which we sometimes meet with 
after acute pleurisy has terminated fatally. Seeing the in- 
gesta, I exclaimed there is a rupture ! but after carefully 
looking over the intestines I could fine none in any of them. 
•The stomach was also entire. Still there was positive 
evidence that all could not be so perfect as it seemingly was, 
and it was only after repeated examinations that my eye 
caught sight of a dark-coloured enlargement on the mesentery, 
just above the centre of the ileum. It proved to be a small 
portion of the contents of the intestine which had entered 
between the two layers of the peritoneum. On either side of 
this were openings of an irregular shape, which at once 
accounted for the escape of the ingesta into the abdominal 
cavity. These lesions were also connected with rupture of 
the vessels, and had a free communication with the interior 
of the bowels. They were situated on the upper surface of 
the tube, ranging in direct lines 011 either side of the mesen- 
