20 
INFLAMMATION AND RUPTURE OF THE LIVER, 
great resistance which he made ; and the owner informed me that 
his people could never give him either draught or ball. I now 
attempted, and succeeded, in giving a mild aperient; threw up 
several large glysters; and ordered him into a loose airy box, and 
to be clothed warm. On leaving the stable, I requested my 
assistant to meet me there in two hours, determined, should we 
find him no better, he should lose more blood. I had not been 
gone above three-quarters of an hour before the owner came, in 
great haste, and said he was down, and he thought dying. He 
then asked me what I thought was his disease, when I told him 
I had strong reason to suspect he had an inflammation of the 
liver. Upon arriving at the stable, I found him standing: pulse 
between 90 and 100; breathing at times much more accelerated ; 
conjunctiva and Schneiderian membrane very pale, and the same 
appearance of the mouth as before described. I now gave a de¬ 
cided opinion as to its being a disease of the liver; and suspect¬ 
ing that internal haemorrhage had taken place, and knowing he 
must die, I proposed bleeding him again, which was accord¬ 
ingly acceded to ; but we had not got above a quart, when he 
staggered and fell, and died in twenty minutes. 
Post-mortem Appearances . 
Upon opening the abdomen, I was quite prepared to meet a 
large haemorrhage ; but notwithstanding our precaution in ex¬ 
posing the intestines, we lost a considerable quantity of blood, in 
which they were completely swimming. After they were taken 
out, I measured six gallons from the abdominal cavity, before we 
were able to get a sight of the liver, which we found to be tom 
five or six inches across its greater lobe, the whole substance of 
which put on the appearance of coagulated blood ; its structure 
was so broken down, it could only be taken out by pieces. All 
the other viscera of the abdomen and thorax were quite healthy, 
and the former very thickly lined with adipose matter. The 
only way in which 1 am able to account for this disease, is, that 
in the late snow and frost, he, not being rough-shod, tumbled 
about very much, and fell down several times ; after this he took 
to lying down while out in the street at night, which he had 
never done before. As, how T ever, he fed well, and did his work 
as usual, this was not taken much notice of. On further enquiry, 
I found that he had been, as might be expected, very costive ; 
and it had been found necessary to give him several bran mashes 
for more than a week past. 
PS. I should have mentioned, that, in bleeding in the morn¬ 
ing, the blood did not come away in one free stream, but by 
repeated jerks or jets. 
