PRACTICE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
559 
Urinary Organs . — The bladder, ureters, kidneys, and urethra, 
were all perfectly healthy. The kidneys were remarkably firm 
and sound. 
The Brain was better in colour, and firmer, than I anticipated ; 
the spinal cord was also good in these respects. The nerves I did 
not particularly examine. 
Digestive Organs . — The stomach contained a large quantity of 
food in a forward state of digestion ; every part of the organ was 
healthy. The small intestines were moderately filled with , a 
brownish-coloured substance of about the consistence of thick 
gruel : the mucous membrane of these intestines was of one uni- 
form dull red colour from one extremity to the other. The large 
bowels were moderately full, and healthy throughout. The liver 
was very sound, and, when divested from all extraneous structures, 
weighed exactly fourteen pounds six ounces. 
Muscular System . — The muscles of animal life were all more 
or less softened. On exposing the psoae muscles, I was surprised 
at their great bulk ; they resembled two bolsters more than any 
thing else I can compare them to. The cellular tissue spread over 
their inferior surface was filled with yellow coagulum, while the 
muscular tissue itself was literally black, and so soft that their 
fibres separated and tore into shreds, which shreds, when squeezed 
dry and worked between the fingers, passed into a kind of powdery 
pulp. The whole of the muscles on both sides of the spine were 
in the same softened state; similar black stains were present also 
within the iliacus muscle of the right side, in the sacro lumbalis 
muscles, transversalis abdominis of both sides, gracilis, sartorius, 
and the pectineus : — those muscles on the right side were the worst; 
I mean these last named ones. The size of the stains varied from 
a mere spot to that of a five-shilling piece, or larger. The cellular 
tissue of the fore limbs, externally, contained the yellow coagulum 
here and there, and the muscles of those parts exhibited a few 
stains also, but such stains were neither large nor numerous. 
Remarks . — Purpura hsemorrhagica is a disease which hitherto 
is without place in any systematic work upon veterinary medicine. 
In a book entitled “ Posthumous Extracts from the Veterinary 
Records of the late John Field,” a volume which is entirely filled 
with veterinary cases, and a volume which every earnest veteri- 
narian should have in his possession, the reader will find records 
of seven cases of this singular disease; the whole of which agree 
in their general features with those which are furnished in the 
present Contribution. In The Veterinarian for 1844, Mr. 
Percivall treats upon this malady ; but he, if I may be allowed the 
expression, mixes it up, as it were, with remarks upon a disease of 
