ON HEMORRHAGE FROM THE LIVER. 647 
mical decomposition of vegetable matter. Here I would beg 
leave to offer another query: it probably never was so much the 
fashion as of late years with farmers, to give their sheep what 
they term a good dressing with mercurial ointment at Michael¬ 
mas, as a preventive of the scab. Now, may not this, by ab¬ 
sorption, particularly if the animal is hard fed and exposed to the 
inclemency of the weather, leave the several organs, but more 
particularly the liver, on which its action is more direct, in a weak 
state and more susceptible of the disease'? I certainly think, if 
traced, we should so find it. 
Flattering myself your valued pages will soon contain much 
good matter on the subject, and knowing, at the same time, it 
will not be passed over by that indefatigable labourer in our 
vineyard, Mr. Youatt, I am 
Your’s, &c. 
Charles Dickins. 
HEPATIRRHCEA, HEMORRHAGE FROM 
THE LIVER. 
(Rupture du Foie, Hurtrel d’Arboval.) 
By Mr . John Field, Jun . 
[Read at the Veterinary Medical Society, April 22, 1830.] 
Few diseases affecting' the horse are more interesting, either 
in a practical or pathological point of view, than this. It 
is of primary importance to the practitioner to become ac¬ 
quainted with the diagnostic symptoms, in order that he may be 
able to discriminate it from other more commonly occurring dis¬ 
orders, of which it exhibits some of the characters. To the pa¬ 
thologist, a most ample field of inquiry and research is presented; 
for notwithstanding the similarity of structure of the chylopoietic 
viscera in the ass and mule, and the absence of the gall-bladder 
in some other animals, as the stag, &c., in England the horse 
alone is obnoxious to this particular malady. 
The previous history of each case teaches us that horses most 
subject to this haemorrhage are always good feeders, remarkably 
healthful, and capable of constant work: they are also in most 
instances fat. 
The hoemorrhage, which rarely occurs under ten years of age, 
is the consequence of an alteration in the structure of the liver, 
the cellular connecting tissue of which is so softened or destroyed, 
