SMALL INTESTINES OF A HORSE. 
637 
By some of these means I had always succeeded in relieving the 
animal, until April 1813, when he was labouring under one of the 
most violent of his usual attacks of colic. He beat himself 
about without ceasing during twelve or fifteen minutes, and 
then died in the most violent convulsions. 
Examination immediately after Death . — The peritoneal cover- 
ing of the stomach and intestines was in a normal state. There 
was only a small quantity of food in the stomach, but it con- 
tained four and a half pounds of earth and sand # . Its mucous 
membrane was inflamed. The liver, the spleen, the kidneys, and 
the bladder were in their natural state. In taking out the intestines 
from the abdominal cavity, and detaching them from the dorso- 
lumbar region, the knacker’s knife was arrested by a hard sub- 
stance. On dissecting it out, I found it to be a brass wire, one 
end of which, four or five inches in length, was loose in the 
small intestine ; the other portion of it penetrated through the 
walls of that intestine, passed for a considerable distance 
between the duplicatures of the peritoneum, then turning, and 
pursuing its course along the dorsal vertebrae, traversed the 
adipose tissue on the anterior part of the right kidney, and 
penetrated a little way into the muscles of that region. This wire 
was retained and solidly fixed in the parts which it traversed, by 
the engorgement which was formed around it. It was about the 
size of a knitting-needle, eight or nine inches long, and retaining 
its round and perfect form through its whole extent. 
The colon and caecum contained many portions of sand and 
earth, scattered here and there through the whole of their extent. 
The other organs were carefully examined, but presented nothing 
unusual. 
There can be no doubt that this wire, at some previous 
and perhaps distant time, had been swallowed in the food. 
The depraved appetite of this animal — his seizing between his 
teeth every hard substance that was within his reach — the eructa- 
tions which were so plainly heard — the eating of earth and sand 
— the licking of the walls — the dreadful pains which he occasion- 
ally felt, did they indicate the presence of some foreign body, or 
an organic vice in some part of the digestive system ? This is 
a question difficult to answer. I certainly suspected the latter, 
and on that suspicion my plan of treatment was formed. 
Mem. de la Soc. Vet. du Calvados , vol. ii, p. 81. 
* I afterwards learned that this horse had escaped from the groom who 
was conducting him to the watering-place on the morning of the day on 
which he died, and that he galloped to the riding-school, where he was 
seen eating of the earth and sand of which the floor of that place was 
composed. 
vol. x. 4 N 
