CONTRIBUTIONS TO COMPARATIVE PATHOLOGY. 823 
riages. The street is too often the school in which the minds of 
the children of the lower classes acquire the habits by which their 
future lives are characterized ; and it is the duty of a good police 
to remove every outrage on common decency, and all that can 
minister to the gross or ferocious habits of the common people. 
The consideration which the English jurisprudence has for its 
horses, may, in the estimation of some persons, border on the ri- 
diculous ; but, at all events, to expose ourselves to a little laughter 
in doing good is better than to give cause for grief by not pre- 
venting that which is cruel . — Journal des Haras, November. 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO COMPARATIVE PATHOLOGY. 
NO. XXIV. 
By Mr. Youatt. 
RUPTURE OF THE GALL-BLADDER. 
Nov. 5, 1839. — A FEMALE SLOTH BEAR had been with us more 
than ten years. She was a very lazy, greedy, ill-tempered crea- 
ture, but had not had any severe or dangerous illness, or, in fact, 
any thing beyond an occasional cough or slight disturbance of the 
bowels. Last night she was apparently well, and this morning she 
ate her breakfast as usual, and then cuddled herself up, according 
to her general custom, in the corner of her cage. She was soon 
afterwards seen creeping slowly from one end of her cage to the 
other, moving herself with considerable caution, and whining and 
groaning as if she was in considerable pain. Her strength seemed 
to be most rapidly exhausted; and about eleven o’clock she laid 
herself down, moaning and lifting her head, and extending and 
contracting her legs, as if she was suffering excruciating pain. 
There was considerable yellowness of the conjunctiva and of the 
membrane of the mouth. 
My first thought was that of sudden and acute enteritis, or 
peritonitis ; and knowing that it would be impossible to force medi- 
cine on such a patient, I ordered some broth, of which she used to 
be fond, to be got ready, on the top of which two ounces of olive- 
oil were to be poured ; two drops of the croton oil being first offered 
to her concealed in a nice bit of meat. 
While the broth was getting ready, the pain rapidly increased, 
and she almost shrieked with agony. In an interval of ease she 
took the meat, but she refused the broth. She was, however, be^ 
come exceedingly weak, and we managed to force upon her at dif- 
ferent times a portion of the broth and more oil. There were not 
any evacuations ; but the pains seemed gradually to abatej or, 
rather, perhaps, her strength wasted, and early in the morning she 
died. 
