554 
OBSTRUCTION IN THE PASSAGE 
10 p.m. He is much worse, and there is no intermission from 
pain. Pulse 36 ; the extremities moderately warm : no feces have 
passed. His favourite position is still on his back, beating the 
inferior portion of his chest with his fore feet, so much so that it 
was necessary to place a rope round them, and to set a man to pro- 
tect it. I gave ol. lini. Ibj, ol. croton gtt. x, and abstracted 8jfes 
of blood, which produced faintness; after which he was tolera- 
bly quiet for some few hours. The enemas were continued, but 
rejected without discolouration. The owner being indisposed, 
and unable to pay him that personal attention he could wish, I 
remained with him the major part of the night. 
1 0th f a.m. — The case now seems, or indeed is, quite hopeless ; 
the pulse varies so much as not to be accurately calculated. 
The medicine not having operated, I repeated the oleaginous 
draught, and blistered the whole surface of the abdomen. 
At 5 p.m. death closed his sufferings. 
Post-mortem examination two hours after death . — The abdo- 
men was first inspected, and my surprise was great, after wit- 
nessing his lengthened and excruciating sufferings, to find the 
peritoneum so little tinged. The stomach contained but a small 
quantitity of food, and was inflamed, but not sufficiently so to 
satisfy my mind as to his death, it being, in my opinion, more 
the effect of my physic than of the primary disease. Reaching 
the duodenum, and at about ten inches from the stomach, the 
source of all the mischief was displayed. That intestine was so 
contracted as not to allow the passage of the chymous mass that 
was there congregated ; in fact, there remained only just room to 
pass a common-sized tobacco-pipe through it, and, for about four 
inches anterior to the diseased part, it was strangely distended. 
I cannot give a better notion of it than by saying, that it re- 
minded me of the large sausages that are hung in some of the 
London shops. The mucous membrane was highly inflamed and 
discoloured. The contracted part seemed to have been caused 
by some injury to the inner surface, as if a nail or other hard 
substance had lodged there, and, in fact, perforated it. The 
small intestines were empty, and slightly inflamed ; the large 
ones were healthy, as were the liver, kidneys, bladder, and all 
the contents of the thorax, &c. 
Remarks . — This horse had been in Mr. Bliss’s possession for 
a great length of time, and had never had any sickness until his 
attack on the 30th of April. Was it then that the bowel re- 
ceived its first injury; and by the depletive measures used, mis- 
chief was arrested for a time ; and that, assisted by the laxative 
medicine and soft regimen, nature had time to perform a tempo- 
rary cure ? 
