3 10 .CASE OF DILATATION OF THE HEART, &C. 
the last days of his life, and by the secretion of the serosity 
which was found in the serous cavities. 
The pleural cavities contained so much serosity, that the lungs 
did not occupy a third of the pleural bags. Several portions of 
the inferior parts of the lungs were condensed to that degree, that 
they only contained air in the greater divisions of the bronchi. 
The tissue thus condensed, instead of being of a deep red colour, 
had a violet hue; it was otherwise perfectly healthy, as it was 
quite pervious to the air. The liquid of the pleurae, like that of 
the peritoneum, was very limpid and rose-coloured. 
The pericardium was also distended by a great quantity of 
serosity, rather more coloured than that of the pleurae and the peri¬ 
toneum. This membrane was nearly double its natural size, for, 
beside the quantity of fluid which I have mentioned, it contained 
a heart of enormous size, the surface of which was very much 
discoloured. The regions of the heart, corresponding with the 
middle of each ventricle, were flabby and sunken; their sur¬ 
faces, instead of being convex, were concave. The coronary region, 
on the contrary, was hard and resisting. The left auricle was 
sunken; the right auricle very much enlarged and distended by 
a solid elastic body which scarcely yielded to pressure. 
After having thus explored the exterior of the heart, I con¬ 
tinued my examination, and opened successively the right auri¬ 
cle, the right ventricle, and their corresponding vessels, and the 
left ventricle and the left auricle, and their vessels. 
The left ventricle was twice its natural size, and contained only 
a small quantity of liquid blood analogous to venous, and a little 
fibrinous clot, yellow, shaded with red. Its walls were very 
thin, and the substance of the heart was discoloured, as I have 
remarked of the other regions of this organ. The left auricle 
was also much enlarged, and contained some blood and a little 
fibrinous clot, which was prolonged through the pulmonary vein 
and reached the clot in the left ventricle. This clot w r as soft, 
and emitted much turbid liquid when it was pressed with the 
finger. There was nothing remarkable about the aortic trunk ; 
it also contained rather a large clot of blood, and which appeared 
to have been recently formed. The inferior part of the cavity of 
the right ventricle contained a small quantity of very black and 
liquid blood. At the superior part a mass of fibrinous substance 
was found, which almost entirely filled this part of the ventricle. 
It was fixed to the septum medium of the ventricles and to the 
neighbouring parts by threads, which crossed in different direc¬ 
tions ; it occupied the greater part of the sinuosities which are 
found between the sigmoid valves, the tricuspids, and the tissue 
of the ventricle and of the right auricle. It almost entirely filled 
