320 
SUCCESSFUL PARACENTESIS. 
not the way to improve. Our power is not yet so very great 
that we may say, there is no want of this new operation, or that 
new medicine : the utility of either may be doubted ; but, are we 
not to employ any agent until we are certain that it will achieve 
the object? 
Vatel and D’Arboval both speak of intestinal punction ; but 
neither recommends it very strongly. Both concur in represent- 
ing it as a very dangerous operation. The former says, that the 
majority of the patients die; and the latter directs that we in- 
form the owner of the probable bad consequences, while we as- 
sure him that, without it, the animal is certainly lost. Chabert 
has performed the operation from the rectum ; but the danger is 
equally great, or rather greater. 
I am disposed to think that the danger has been needlessly 
increased ; first, by using too large a trochar, and, next, by allow- 
ing the canula to remain too long in the orifice — so long that 
the part loses its elasticity, and remains wide open after the 
canula is extracted. The instrument I used made so small a 
wound that no part of the solid intestinal contents could escape 
by it ; and a small quantity of air or fluid, which might possi- 
bly find its way into the abdominal cavity, would be absorbed 
before peritonitis could be excited. On the morning after the 
operation, no orifice could be discovered in the skin ; the points 
at which the trochar had entered were marked only by the adhe- 
sion of a few of the hairs. Still much may be said against the 
operation. It is a last remedy. It can never be necessary when 
the disease is seen at its commencement, nor when there is 
any passage through the bowels. 
A CASE OF SUCCESSFUL PARACENTESIS 
THORACIS IN A HORSE. 
By Mr. W. Sc riven, A be? ford. 
A bay horse, belonging to the Union Canal Company, which 
had been accustomed to hard labour for two years and a half 
without intermission, was on the 5th January last attacked with 
inflammation of the lungs. He was bled, and 3iij of aloes were 
given to him by the agent, Mr. Lambert, a fellow pupil with 
me under Mr. Dick; and other proper treatment was pursued. 
At his request I saw the horse on the 9th. The pulse was 
60, hard and full ; the heart bounding against the ribs; extre- 
mities colder than ordinary, and the appetite much impaired. I 
abstracted four quarts of blood, and ordered of nitre and emetic 
