633 
A CASE OF SPLENITIS IN A HORSE. 
By M. Moreau, F.N., Arcis-sur-Aube. 
The diseases of the spleen, in our domesticated animals, are 
those which have least engaged the attention of the pathologist, 
whether on account of our ignorance of the functions of that 
organ, or the unfrequency of disease in it, or the difficulty of the 
diagnosis of that disease in veterinary medicine, in no part of 
which have we any description of the symptoms by which it is 
designated. 
M. Gelle, Professor of the school at Toulouse, has endeavoured 
to cast some light on the diagnosis of these affections ; but there 
remains much yet to do. It is, then, the duty of every veterinary 
surgeon to publish the facts that occur in his practice, and 
which can throw any light on this obscure point of pathology. 
On the 28th of December, 1840, I was sent for to examine a 
tall mare, of good constitution and in apparently healthy condi- 
tion. 
An hour before I arrived, she was trembling all over, and the 
countenance was exceedingly anxious. The owner, thinking it 
was a case of indigestion, had given her a bottle of salt and water. 
This did not prevent her from alternately lying down and getting 
up again, nor was there any amelioration in her general state and 
appearance. 
When I arrived, she was standing up, her legs, before and be- 
hind, very wide apart — heaving — her flanks agitated — the nostrils 
strongly contracted, as was the whole of the face — the upper and 
lower jaws separated from each other, as if the animal was endea- 
vouring to respire through the mouth — the pulse not to be felt — 
the conjunctival membranes pale — the heaving of the flanks very 
considerable. Three or four minutes after my arrival these symp- 
toms ceased, and there only remained a tottering kind of motion : 
but, immediately afterwards, there was a new and more de- 
cidedly spasmodic action, and she fell, and was afterwards raised 
again by mere force. I immediately suspected that there was 
some internal rupture, and my prognosis was a very serious one. 
I bled her from the jugular, but I could only procure a small 
quantity of blood, thick, exceedingly black, and resembling pitch. 
I received a portion of it in a glass, in order to ascertain its phy- 
sical character. While I proceeded with the bleeding, which 
yielded a very feeble jet, although the vein had been largely 
opened, she threw herself anew on the ground, and, after violent 
convulsions, which continued some minutes, she died. 
A coagulation of the blood took place in about ten minutes. 
VOL. xvi. 4 Q 
