MUCOUS COAT OF THE DIGESTIVE CANAL. 
457 
stances of an epidermic character had been long recognized, 
and particularly in the folds of the stomachs of the larger 
ruminants. 
It may also be remarked, that authors, whether medical or 
veterinary, who had, unto the present time, spoken of the exist- 
ence of hairs on some parts of the mucous surface, have con- 
sidered these productions as accidental, and either as the result 
of congenital derangement, or of some morbid alterations during 
their extra-uterine existence. 
Another question now arises, may these capillary growths 
form part of the natural conformation of certain organs ? It 
has been left for me to answer this question in the affirmative. 
On Feb. 4th, 1836, I opened a heavy draught horse, ten or 
twelve years old, of a light roan colour. It died of intestinal 
hemorrhage. As I examined the lesions produced by this dis- 
ease on the mucous coat of the large intestines, I perceived a 
great many small hairs implanted in it towards the pelvian cur- 
vature of the colon. They were white, and in size and length 
resembled those of the external coat of the animal. They were 
very easy to be perceived, because their light colour formed a 
contrast with that of the mucous coat of the intestine, which 
was of a red brown colour, produced by the sanguineous en- 
gorgement of the part. I plucked out some of them, and by 
the assistance of a lens I ascertained that, like those of the skin, 
they had a bulbiform enlargement at the root. As I knew that 
others had found these hairy growths on the internal teguments, 
I thought, as they had done, that they were merely accidental, 
and the circumstance would not have made any considerable 
impression on my mind had it not been for the following cir- 
cumstance. 
Two days afterwards, another horse died of the same disease. 
I examined the portion of the mucous coat of the intestine that 
had been the principal seat of the disease, and there also I found 
hairs similar to the preceding. I shewed portions of the intes- 
tine on which I had observed these hairs to several of the pro- 
fessors of the school of Alfort, and they agreed with me that 
these hairs possessed all the characters of those of the skin. 
This discovery induced me to search whether these hairs fre- 
quently occurred in the intestines of horses, and whether they 
were to be found in any other case than that of the intestinal 
mucous membrane being gorged w ? ith blood, and strongly coloured 
by that fluid. 
The result of this inquiry w’as, that hairs were to be found on 
the intestinal mucous membrane of almost every horse, at the 
pyloric orifice of the stomach, and origin of the small intestine, 
