VESICAL AND BILIARY CALCULI. 
211 
of an ox which had recently died in its stall, and to give his 
opinion as to its malady being of such a nature as to spread to 
the other oxen on the farm. 
The deceased beast had manifested dulness since the begin¬ 
ning of August, and had insensibly fallen off in its condition 
and appetite; next, he was attacked all on a sudden with pant¬ 
ing of the flanks—difficult respiration ; and he ceased to rumi¬ 
nate : the excrement was hard. A few" days afterwards he grew 
worse, lost all appetite and was constantly dying: the skin and 
extremities were w"arm ; the mucous surfaces displayed a yellow 
dye; urine scanty. Latterly, diarrhea supervened upon a de¬ 
gree of constipation. The proprietor’s treatment consisted m 
drinks and clysters of marsh mallow and linseed decoctions. 
Examination, Tissues dyed yellow. Viscera in general red¬ 
dened ; more particularly the duodenum, coecum, and liver; 
the last w"as of very large size, gorged with black blood, easily 
lacerable in its texture, softened; the gall-bladder was full of 
black inspissated bile in which sw"am a gall-stone the size of a 
walnut.—The spleen was also of large volume and in the same 
state as the liver. 
M. Reiss concludes that death was the result of the general 
inflammation pervading the abdominal viscera; and that the 
gall-stone was an old affair. 
RFLECTIONS. 
The above cases may be viewed in more lights than one, but 
to me (says M. Reiss) the following conclusions in particular 
appear to be deducible from them :— 
That stone may be present within the bladder without sensi¬ 
bly affecting the health of the animal. 
That there is'no symptom in particular by which we can be 
led to suspect that one or more stones are in a state of forma¬ 
tion within the bladder. 
That it is not until stones have acquired such a volume as to 
produce the symptoms detailed above that one can even suspect 
their existence ; for, from all the information I have been able 
to collect, none of these subjects have been in the way of causes 
likely to produce nephritis, nor has one of them shown a single 
symptom of that disease. 
In fine, whenever an animal stales with difficulty, in jets, 
a little at a time and often; whenever he paws, postures him¬ 
self (for staling), lies down and frequently rolls ; staggers in 
, his walk ; and the bladder is found, per rectum, distended with 
urine, the evacuation of which is followed by a cessation of the 
VoL. I.—No. 4. N 
