432 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PATHOLOGY AND 
to be remarkably healthy and firm throughout. Its weight was 
exactly nineteen pounds one ounce avoirdupois. 
Organs of the Chest , fyc . — The nasal passages, the larynx, 
trachea, bronchial tubes, and the lungs, were all beautifully healthy, 
and free from every trace of a diseased appearance. The large 
veins were filled with black semi-fluid blood, as also were both 
ventricles of the heart. Here and there I found intermixed some 
small portions of coagulated fibrin. The heart, when divested of 
its large vessels, fat, and other extern tissues, weighed nine pounds 
eight ounces avoirdupois, and, I should have stated, was firm and 
healthy in every respect. 
Nervous System, fyc . — I examined the great nervous centre very 
carefully, and also the muscles of animal life, but found nothing 
further of an abnormal nature. 
Remarks . — The first case I consider one of chronic peritonitis 
in connexion with abscess of the liver. I remember having a 
similar case to this, which occurred in a very aged cow belonging 
to a person in this town ; but, unfortunately, my notes respecting 
it are very deficient in matters of detail. In the case to which I 
allude, the disease first manifested its existence by the animal 
losing flesh, and in a short time afterwards the abdomen was dis- 
covered to very slowly increase in size generally : the animal was 
also affected with cough, and occasionally with diarrhoea, but not 
in either respect very severely. The cow did not receive much 
medical treatment, and, after being ill about four months, she died 
greatly emaciated, although her appetite remained pretty good till 
within a few days of her death. 
It was by the merest chance that I happened to see her opened ; 
and all the memoranda which I possess respecting the condition 
of the organs as displayed after death is simply as to the existence 
of an immense quantity of water in the abdominal cavity, in which 
floated large masses of putrid-looking lymph, and also that the 
peritoneum was almost gangrenous throughout. Such are all the 
memoranda in my possession respecting so interesting a case. 
That the case detailed in this contribution is, in part, one of 
chronic enteritis, I infer from the following facts: first, the liver 
was nearly disorganized, and the purulent matter which its remains 
enclosed, as it were, was destitute of effluvium, and the matter 
itself was also of one uniform density; two conditions of purulent 
matter which are not found except after being deposited for a 
considerable period. Secondly, if the peritoneal inflammation had 
first commenced when l was called to the case on the 27th instant, 
the changes discovered after death could not have been effected in 
so short a period, unless the disease had been intense; and had it 
been intense, symptoms of a very different nature, l should expect 
