DROPSY AND THICKENING OF THE PERICARDIUM. 315 
29th.—Parturiton approaching. Pulse still obscure; warai all 
over. QEdematous under her jaws, and about her breast and 
udder: general appearance not much altered, and she eats 
occasionally a little hay. 
30th.—Died about nine o’clock in the morning. The owner 
saw her standing up about five minutes before, and she did not then 
seem any worse than usual. 
Dissection .—butcher had skinned and opened her soon after 
she died; and I did not see her until about five in the afternoon. 
On cutting through the sternum, the pericardium was found to 
occupy the whole of the opening, and was attached to both 
sides of it for several inches down, and also to the diaphragm. 
It had pressed a part of the lungs out of its proper situation, and 
was at least three times its natural size. The parietes were altered 
in structure, and one-sixth of an inch in thickness, resembling 
the paunch more than the delicate membrane of the pericardium, 
and contained a gallon of discoloured fluid, interspersed with 
flakes of matter. The heart and pericardium were partly coated 
with this flocculent substance. A piece of a darning needle, 
about 2\ inches in length, with the eye broken off, was dis¬ 
covered lying upon a part of the pericardium; and a small ulcer, 
three-quarters of an inch deep, appeared near the apex of the 
heart. The cowman afterwards found two sixpenny nails and a 
shot in her first stomach. 
Observations .—The needle in the pericardium, and the corre¬ 
sponding ulcer in the heart, convince me that the presence of this 
foreign body was the cause of the disease. The principal symptoms 
indicating it were, a thready quick pulse, hardly to be felt; a day 
or two before her death, swelling under her jaws and throat, bad 
appetite, and dulness came on, but no apparent pain. 
There is reason to believe that this disease, and proceeding 
from similar causes, may not be of unfrequent occurrence. A 
gentleman who was in the habit of using riddles in his barn for 
the dressing of his corn, lost a_ cow from a disease the nature of 
which he did not quite understand. He found the heart enlarged, 
and its covering thickened, and a piece of wire two inches in 
length sticking in it, which had produced extensive ulceration 
and gangrene. Edit. 
