152 
CASE OF RUPTURE OF THE SPLEEN. 
ampler opportunities of watching its history, and has felt a nearer 
concern in the welfare of the subject of it than commonly befals 
the educated practitioner, I confidently venture to offer it for your 
insertion. The unpretending simplicity of the narrative must atone 
for any lack or misuse of technical phraseology, and the cheerful 
contribution of his mite to your treasury of veterinary lore must 
counterbalance the insufficiency of the giver. 
In October 1846, I purchased of a neighbouring gentleman a 
mare, aged twenty-two years, got by Master Henry out of a 
Sir Oliver mare, for breeding purposes. When I bought her, she 
was looking very unkindly, was very lean, and had a chronic 
cough. She had been put to Heron that year, but was not in 
foal ; nor could I get her to stand to the horse the following year, 
though I tried no less than four different thorough-bred stallions : 
so I rode her as a hack ; but her cough continued so troublesome, 
and her kidneys beginning to exhibit symptoms of disease, evinced 
by a straddling gait, difficulty in rising, temporary lameness, 
shrinking on pressure across the loins, slight discharge of blood 
from her shape, and pawing at her belly, I thought it more humane 
to give her a run at grass for the remainder of her days, with a 
broad charge across her loins during the winter months, and a shed 
to run into. In the spring of 1848 she was altered so much for 
the better, having entirely god rid of her cough, and acquired a 
blooming, silky coat, that 1 put her to a four-year-old half-bred 
horse, who stinted her at the first leap. What is usually the case 
under such circumstances, and, indeed, is the surest evidence of 
impregnation, her condition mended surprisingly ; so that, when 
winter again set in, she appeared thoroughly armed to encounter 
the severities of the season. A top of her winter’s coat, she 
again received the protection of a charge across the loins, perfectly 
impervious to any fall of weather; and though she fell away in 
flesh, notwithstanding the liberal allowance of a most generous 
diet, yet she moulted kindly, and, with the aid of my mid- 
wifery, brought me a healthy but lean and weakly filly. She 
went three weeks over her time, a thing not uncommon with aged 
mares ; and a month after foaling, being much increased in flesh, 
she was again put to the horse, a thorough -bred one, and stinted at 
the first leap. She gave her offspring but little milk, and that of a 
very poor quality (I often tasted it) ; so that, in spite of all my care, 
her filly continued stunted and dwarfish, and became tod-bellied. 
The dam herself, however, grew absolutely fleshy and fat; I 
was, therefore, under no apprehensions about the approaching win- 
ter. Still persisting in the application of the charge, from which I 
fancied so much benefit had accrued, I left her to subsist on the 
fog-grass until it began to fail, when I gave her a good feed of 
