INTESTINAL CALCULUS. 
679 
I succeeded in proving most satisfactorily the correctness of 
my diagnosis — for not only were the glands already described 
affected with true scirrhus, but also both the inguinal and 
several of the mesenteric glands, three of which especially 
were of very large size. All these presented the same 
appearance of hard, tabulated, and rounded tumours. On 
dividing them they showed the condition of true scirrhus, 
just prior to the taking on of the ulcerated form, and which 
is more properly known as cancer. 
I preserved one of these tumours, and which I have still 
in my museum. 
This was a case of true scirrhus ; and although the mesen- 
teric glands were affected, the animal had not any appearance 
whatever of tabes mesenterica , — a very different disease, and 
of which I have met with several cases. One of these 
showed, in addition to the diseased state of the mesenteric 
glands, ossification, to a very considerable extent, of the 
mesenteric arteries. 
This was certainly the most marked case of the kind that 
has occurred to me in the course of a long practice, and it 
will tend to show how cautious a practitioner should be in 
minutely examining for points apparently unconnected with 
a disease, and carefully noting minutiae and deliberating on 
even remote probabilities, ere he commits himself, either by 
an operation, or an opinion as to the future results. 
I know that it had on myself a good effect, for though, as 
will be seen by the above recital of the simple facts, I was 
not previously disposed to be incautious, it made me very 
much more so, for if it has acted by staying my hand from 
more than one or two operations by which I might have 
gained repute as an operator, it has left me the far greater 
satisfaction of having judged wisely, and thereby prevented, 
on the one hand, a subsequent unfavorable termination ; and 
the avoidance to the animal of an unnecessary operation, and 
consequently of pain — for I need not say that any operation 
performed without a reasonable prospect of benefit is cruelty 
to the suffering, uncomplaining animal, and to be most 
strenuously deprecated. 
CASE OF INTESTINAL CALCULUS. 
By Josiah Hutton, M.R.C.V.S., Sudbury, Suffolk. 
On Friday, September 21st, 1855, an aged chestnut horse 
belonging to the Eastern Counties Railway Company, and 
