72 
TETANUS APPARENTLY CAUSED BY INTESTINAL 
CALCULUS. 
Sir, — I f you think there is any thing interesting in the following 
case worthy of a place in your valuable Journal, it is at your 
service. 
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
N. J. Henens. 
On November the 6th last, I was sent for to attend a horse, the 
property of a gentleman farmer, that had been unwell two or three 
days previous to my seeing him. It was an aged animal — nearly 
twenty years old. 
The horse was suffering, as I supposed, from idiopathic tetanus, 
not finding a wound or any thing to induce me to believe it was 
traumatic. The disease was so far advanced that it was with 
difficulty we could get the horse out of his stall. The general 
symptom« were analogous to those of acute tetanus ; and so I gave 
the owner little hopes of saving him. I bled, and administered 
strong cathartics and antispasmodics, with the tobacco enema, &c., 
without any good effect. At length I advised the owner to have 
the horse destroyed, which he accordingly did. 
Two days after, being informed a ball was found in the intestines, 
I called, and saw a portion of the colon which was left for me to 
examine, from which the ball had been taken. It was very much 
thickened, was streaked with inflammation, and spotted with ec- 
chymosis. I could not tell the exact situation of the stone, as 
there was but a small portion of the gut kept for me to inspect. 
The horse had never shewn any enteritic symptoms ; on the 
contrary, always had been a very healthy animal. 
The calculus was perfectly spherical, and so highly polished that 
it resembled the chestnut just slipped out of its shell. It weighed 
twenty-one and-a-half ounces avoirdupois, and measured three 
inches and three-eighths in diameter. 
Hayes, Jail. 8, 1850. 
