ON BLACK-WATER. 
37 
testines, like all the other viscera, consequent upon such an act, 
are required, and must instantly fulfil the duties by Nature allot- 
ted to them, or that grim agent Death will speedily take posses- 
sion of that frail body which has but just become the abode of life 
in one of its lightest forms ] 
I rely on your kindness to excuse my trespassing so much on 
your valuable space, and asking you kindly to give insertion to 
this case in the pages of as honest a journal as Europe can boast of. 
ON BLACK- WATER. 
By Mr. W. A. Cartwright, Whitchurch. 
Having had an opportunity recently of making a few post- 
mortem examinations in cases of black-water, I have sent them to 
you. It will appear that there were not those morbid appear- 
ances in the liver and stomachs, especially in the third stomach, 
that have usually been deemed the cause of the disease. There 
might have been constipation, for aught I know, at the commence- 
ment, although I have my doubts about it ; but I am inclined to 
think there is still a little mystery connected with the disease, and 
that it may arise from different causes, not at present fully under- 
stood, yet the prevailing cause is probably connected with the 
food taken in and deteriorating the circulating fluid. It is well 
known that, in many cases of constipation, there is no black- water, 
therefore this cannot be always the cause of the disease. 
It has not fallen to my lot to treat many cases of black- water, as 
they are generally doctored by their owners or by druggists; but 
this I know, that numbers die around me. I never lost but one 
patient, and that, I may say, was no fault of mine. I never saw, 
in what we commonly call black- water, any blood mixed with the 
urine, nor was there in these cases. The livers were little differ- 
ent from healthy ones, and very like many that we see in fat 
cattle or others that we consider sound. Here and there they 
were tinted of a clayey colour, and with a few cysts containing a 
sort of gritty substance ; but there was nothing of sufficient import - 
ance, one would think, to affect the health, or the quantity of bile 
secreted, though it is undeniable that, even in these cases, the gall- 
bladders were distended with bile different in colour and consist- 
ence from what we usually find in it. In a state of health the gall- 
bladder is sometimes very much distended with bile. 
I am perfectly aware that in a great many cases, if we can 
produce purging, our patients get well, or even before that takes 
