OF THE HEART IN A HORSE. 
239 
labour required of him. Although he had not any cough, it had 
been remarked that his respiration and his pulse were much 
quicker than in their natural state, and that the slightest exercise 
was sufficient to put him out of breath ; yet, even then, the move- 
ments of the flanks were increased in number rather than ren- 
dered irregular. 
Hoping that he would gradually improve, and reckoning upon 
the youth of the horse, M. Barthelemy, the veterinary surgeon 
of the establishment, advised that he should be sent to a farm in 
the neighbourhood of Paris, to which the convalescents were 
generally despatched. He remained there two months, and came 
back as nearly as possible in the same state. The season then 
admitting it, the effect of green food was tried, but without 
success. 
At length, after various fruitless efforts to restore him to health, 
he was sent once more to work. This did not at all succeed ; and 
the animal, that before this time had only appeared to be some- 
what indisposed, rapidly became seriously ill. He was sent to 
the infirmary, and died there on the sixth day, with symptoms 
of pneumonia on both sides of the chest. 
On opening him, some hours after death, M. Barthelemy 
found both lungs occupied by vast cavities or vomicse, with their 
parietes smooth and well organized, and containing a white, ho- 
mogeneous, and inodorous pus. The greater part of the pulmo- 
nary tissue was hepatized, of a firm consistence, and grey colour. 
There was no effusion in the thoracic cavity, and there was no 
adhesion of the pleura. The pulmonary lesions, however, were 
quite sufficient to account for the death of the animal. 
Pursuing his necroscopic observations, M. Barthelemy re- 
marked that the heart, exceedingly voluminous, filled nearly the 
whole of the cavity of the pericardium. The left auricle was en- 
tirely ossified, and strongly adhered to the pericardium by white, 
fibrous, and tenacious bands. This auricle was double its natural 
size, and its walls completely ossified, and more than the third 
of an inch in thickness. The auricular septum was sound, and 
the auriculo-ventricular valves had not a spot of ossification. It 
was the same in the aortic trunk and its divisions. The hyper- 
trophy of the heart was caused chiefly by the thickness of its 
parietes. The ventricular cavities were not sensibly enlarged. 
It is easy to perceive, from this short description, that the ossi- 
fication was carried to such a degree, that the right auricle was 
no longer able to contract. Deprived of the impulse which this 
auricle was wont to impress upon it, the blood penetrated into 
the ventricular cavity by its own weight, and more particularly 
by a kind of suction which always takes place at the moment 
