AVOltMS IN THE TRACHEA. 507 
tinued with greater or less violence more than an hour, and 
he died. 
The post-mortem examination presented very singular appear- 
ances. The emphysematous edges of the lungs, and indeed of 
the substance of the lungs for a considerable way from the edge, 
told of the broken wind under which he had so long laboured. 
In keeping with this was an unusual dilatation and softening of 
the heart : Mr. Ainslie had never seen it to so great a degree in 
the horse. The parietes of the ventricles were thinned, and, as it 
were, macerated, so that their substance yielded to very incon- 
siderable pressure. It seemed almost incredible that they should 
not have given way in the previous struggles of the animal. 
Their want of power to contract on their contents well explains 
the apparent danger of suffocation. Another contest between 
him and his medical attendants would have been fatal. 
At least fifty or sixty worms of the strongylus species were 
found in the trachea and the larger and smaller divisions of the 
bronchi. They had excited a slight blush of inflammation on 
the mucous membrane ; but they had produced no cough, no 
difficulty of breathing beyond that which is characteristic of 
broken wind, although they might have contributed to the danger 
of suffocation in the struggle. The lungs were considerably 
congested, and the pericardium was thickened. There was no 
appearance of disease in the whole of the abdominal cavity, and 
the wounds appeared healthy, and were granulating well. 
The presence of the strongyli in so great numbers, and pro- 
ducing so little structural or functional disturbance in the lungs, 
is a remarkable circumstance, although partially explained, per- 
haps, by their being found in so old an animal, in whom the 
sensibility of the lining membrane of the respiratory passages 
would be considerably impaired — and more so by the disease 
under which he had so long laboured. Still their appearance in 
so old an animal is an unusual circumstance, and deserves 
notice. Wo had hitherto been accustomed to consider these 
parasites as the tormentors of younger animals ; and when our 
cattle had passed their first year we reckoned them to be exempt 
from the murderous attacks of that species of bronchitis con- 
nected with or caused by their presence. The tetanus, did it pro- 
ceed from their presence, or from some nervous lesion connected 
with the wound ; or was it hurried on in so unusually short a period 
after the operation — six days — and did it run its course with so 
fearful rapidity — little more than eight and forty hours — by their 
united influence ? In the horse, tetanus seldom destroys the 
patient in less than seven, or eight, or ten days '-it has 
