430 
CASKS CONNECTED WITH PARTURITION. 
disabled to contract on its contents. She lived several hours after 
the rupture had taken place without evincing any apparent pain 
or debility, and was then destroyed. 
PARTURITION IN A SO W — N O N-EXTR A CTIO N SEPTUM IN 
THE VAGINA. 
On Wednesday night, the 23d March 1842, a “gilt” of Mr. 
Huxley’s, of this town, produced four pigs. She was uneasy all 
the day before. The first she pigged was about nine at night, 
and the last about three on the next morning : from this time she 
was left alone. 
24^, 11 a.m. — Mr. H. came to me, and said she" was con- 
tinually straining, and yet no other pigs could be detected. 
I examined her, and could just feel the nose of another ; but 
with all her straining she could not force it onward. I then, with 
some difficulty (as the pig was far up the vagina and the passage 
very confined), put a small hook through the lower jaw, but it 
soon broke out. I next put it into the upper jaw, the eye- 
holes, &c., but in every place it tore out. At length, I pulled 
away the ends of the upper and lower jaw with my fingers ; 
and afterwards 1 got my finger into one of the eye-holes, and in 
pulling at it a part of the bones of the face came away. During 
the time all this was doing she was under the influence of the 
ergot of rye, administered in about fifteen-grain doses, and 
repeated every hour for three times, and I thought with good 
effect, as her labour pains were strong and continuous. 
Finding, about three o’clock in the afternoon, that the passage 
was becoming narrower, and that w’e could not attach any thing 
to the head, and she being excessively fat, and about eleven score 
weight, I recommended that she should be killed, as I feared she 
might otherwise die from the force we had used in handling the 
parts, and accordingly she was destroyed. 
Post-mortem examination . — On cutting open the vagina I 
found that, at about five inches from its orifice, there were two 
distinct passages, but that on the right hand being the largest. 
This division appeared to be formed by a strong band, composed, 
to all appearance, of muscular fibre, and covered with the mucous 
membrane, the same as in other places, and was attached to the 
upper and lower part of the vagina, but inclining a little more to 
one side. This attachment was, in extent, about three inches, 
but the membrane extended both ways from it for at least two 
inches farther, in a loose manner, thus dividing the vagina, for 
about seven inches, into two distinct cavities. 
Observations . — I think it highly probable that the four pigs 
which she produced had come through the largest passage, and 
