464 
DISEASE OF THE SPLEEN IN CATTLE. 
had been lately purchased. On opening the abdomen, the rumen, 
the reticulum, and the maniplus presented no unusual appearance, 
but the abomasum was filled with a fluid of the strangest de- 
scription. It seemed as if a quantity of blood and bile and chyme 
and mucus was mixed together, exhaling an odour of the most fetid 
character. The whole of the small intestines was filled with this 
strange compound ; but here and there floated in it large clots of 
coagulated black blood. As we traced the different intestines, all 
this seemed to be more and more amalgamated together, until in 
the rectum, and a little way above it, the intestines were filled with 
“ a black tarry matter.” 
The mucous membrane of the intestines was stained with this 
adhesive fluid, and, here and there, studded with patches of a 
blacker colour. The mesentery was also covered with large 
patches of black blood — the lacteals were turgid almost to burst- 
ing, and, at the superior part of the mesentery, was a cyst or tu- 
mour containing a pint of blood of the same hue, and half coagulated. 
On carefully opening this tumour, I traced a canal or sinus, per- 
meating the tissue of the mesentery, and terminating in a kind of 
ruptured opening into the duodenum, about an inch and a half 
below the pyloric orifice of the abomasum. Every vessel in this 
portion of the mesentery was dilated. 
The splenic vessels were equally enlarged. The spleen itself 
was considerably engorged, and weighed more than fourteen pounds. 
There was a rupture on its upper surface, three inches in length, 
and which appeared as if it had existed several days. The abdo- 
minal muscles in this region, for several inches in diameter, were 
in a congested and blackened state, and this reaching quite through 
to the external integument. The other contents of the abdomen 
were apparently healthy. 
The lungs were nearly white and bloodless, and so was the 
heart. The liquor pericardii was of a rather darker colour than 
usual, and somewhat increased in quantity. The medulla spinalis 
contained no trace of disease, except in the lumbar region, and 
there it was of a madder colour. The brain exhibited no derange- 
ment, and, in short, with the exception of the lesions which I have 
described, and there being very little blood in the whole system, 
and bleeding evidently hastening the fatal termination, every organ 
seemed to be free from either acute or chronic disease. 
I am inclined to believe that the spleen is the original seat of 
the evil, or there is some accidental bruise on the part of the ab- 
domen opposite to the spleen. It is this way only that I can 
account for the discolouration of the muscles of the abdomen. 
This opinion was very much corroborated in a late case ; for I 
found at the yard-gate the end of a rail projecting a few inches 
