344 ON THE PRESENT EPIDEMIC AMONG CATTLE. 
had been attended by an old cowleech. When L arrived, she was 
just dead, but the owner desired me to open her ; which I did. 
The only information I could obtain of her symptoms, &c. while 
living was, a grunting when turned round or lying down. She had 
voided very little from the anus since she began to be ill, but to- 
wards the last she discharged a little coagulated blood, mixed with 
mucus, with painful breathing, loss of appetite, and rumination 
suspended. On removing the sternum, and exposing the whole 
contents of the thorax, the pericardium appeared spotted with 
patches of inflammation. Some portion of the lungs was covered 
with tubercles. The heart and pleura were quite healthy. At the 
centre of the diaphragm there was an abscess just at the point 
of bursting; and, on opening it, about half a pint of grumous 
unhealthy pus escaped, with a piece of the muscular part of the 
diaphragm, about four ounces in weight, which had sloughed, 
and floated loose in the abscess. I now laid open the abdo- 
men, and, tracing the intestines from the anus, the whole length 
from the anus to the extent of eighteen feet forward was so 
contracted and diminished in substance as with difficulty to 
admit my finger. Three feet from the fourth, or true stomach, I 
found the cause of all the obstruction. There was intussusception 
in an aggravated and organized form that I never witnessed 
before. The inverted portion was eight inches long, and had 
become united to the mucous linings of those parts of the bowels, 
both of which were filled with a black substance, composed of 
coagulated blood, in an advanced state of disorganization, uniting 
the folding parts of the bowels together in one impervious mass 
of a considerable size. The uniting portions had grown and 
adhered so fast together that the bowel could not be drawn back 
into its original position without dissecting and dividing these 
adhesions with the knife through their whole length — all shewing 
plainly that it must have been the work of some time and gradu- 
ally proceeding, until the perviousness of the bowel became com- 
pletely stopped. 
And now, my dear Sirs, allow me to conclude with a renewal of 
my former complaint, that there is such a lack of contributions 
by those from whom we have a right to expect some valuable 
ones : 1 mean the great stars of the metropolis and its vicinity. 
Alas ! where are they ? With yourselves, and one or two excepted, 
I believe them to be takers in of knowledge, not letters out. 
