504 
ACUTE INTESTINAL INFLAMMATION 
lesion, and that death was near at hand. The animal died half 
an hour after my visit. 
The proprietor, in order to be prepared to commence an action 
for the recovery of the sum which he had paid for the horse, pre- 
sented a petition to the tribunal that a post-mortem examination 
might be ordered : it did not, therefore, take place until forty- 
eight hours after death. Being appointed by the tribunal to 
conduct this examination, I performed it in the presence of the 
parties. 
From the pelvian curvature to the origin of the floating portion 
of the colon, the external parietes of the intestine presented a 
livid black colour. After having cut into the intestine, I found 
it filled with a hardened mass, which diffused the most infectious 
odour. The greater part of it consisted of a vast quantity of 
gravel, some of the particles of which were as large as an ordinary 
pea, and very irregular in their form : some were flat, and re- 
sembled chippings of slate. Among the portions of aliment were, 
here and there, pellets, some of which were as large as a hen’s 
egg ; one of them was considerably larger, and occupied the 
contracted part which is found at the origin of the floating portion 
of the colon. On the surface of the mucous coat, throughout 
the whole extent of the colon, was a layer of sand, finer than 
that w 7 hich composed the pellets. I collected a quantity of this 
sandy and gravelly matter, which weighed five pounds. The 
mucous membrane, through the whole extent of the colon, con- 
tained gangrenous spots, which were exceedingly foetid. In 
many parts the muscular as well as the mucous membrane was 
destroyed ; and on the portion of the peritoneal membrane that 
was then exposed there were many patches of ecchymosis; and, 
here and there, grains of sand were buried, or, as it were, set in 
the parietes of the intestines. 
No other portion of the intestines contained any morbid lesion, 
or inclosed any foreign body. The stomach was sound. 
The neck of the bladder presented evident traces of inflamma- 
tion. There was nothing unusual in the kidneys, the liver, or 
the spleen, except that they were unusually pale. The blood, 
small in quantity, was black and pitchy, as has been observed in 
diseases characterized by a change in that fluid. 
After all these lesions, I could not hesitate to decide against 
the seller; for, although the animal had died of an acute intes- 
tinal disease, and which, perhaps, had commenced since the sale, 
yet that disease was, without doubt, caused by the presence of 
the gravel, and that gravel had certainly existed in the intestine 
before the sale. The law proceedings were not pushed far. The 
seller, who had not had the horse more than a few days, and 
