ItEPLY TO “ A VETERINARY SURGEON. 
733 
slightest pressure was sufficient to reduce it to a grey pulp. The 
air-cells were obliterated — and the cellular tissue interposed be- 
tween them, and even the bronchial, tubes, and the smaller and 
the larger bloodvessels, both arterial and venous, were in many 
places dissolved and gone. We regarded these cases as most 
unusual, but in them the smaller lobes particularly on the right 
side, were pervious to a little extent. There was a portion still 
of permeable lung ; but here is “ no lung to be found — not a 
portion;” and the thoracic cavity was filled with two pailfuls of 
watery, milky fluid, and that in an animal, the density of the 
substance of whose lungs is far greater than in the human being. 
We ought to have far more numerous and accurate accounts of 
the post-mortem appearances in our patients. It has been too 
much neglected where it was most of all needed. No clinical 
lectures have been devoted to this important branch of patho- 
logy; and, in the common routine of our practice, it cannot be 
attended to so satisfactorily as we could wish. — Y.] 
MR. TOMBS AND “ A VETERINARY SURGEON.” 
Pershore, Oct. 11, 1839. 
Dear Sir, — On perusing The Veterinarian for this month, I 
perceive that “ A Veterinary Surgeon” has made some observations 
on my cases of red* water and puerperal fever; in reply to which 1 
shall be brief, as I deprecate the system of anonymous writing. 
Respecting the first case, I am thoroughly convinced, from the 
symptoms and appearances after death, that it was a genuine one of 
the disease, known by the name of red- water. I think a practitioner, 
who has “ met with very many cases of red- water, and several 
of congestion of the liver,” is capable of discriminating between 
the two diseases, especially if he has had opportunities of witness- 
ing the post-mortem appearances of the same, which I have, and 
communicated the “facts” of the last case of red- water to you, 
about which your correspondent has great doubt, although he ac- 
knowledges that he has not seen one post-mortem appearance of 
such a case. 
As to the other case, I can give him positive “ proof,” if proof 
be wanting, that it was actually a case of puerperal, or what is 
generally termed milk fever; although I did not give a description 
of the early symptoms, for the best of all reasons, viz. that I did 
not see the animal until she was apparently in a dying condition. 
I will now, however, state for his information, that the brain and 
